Yan Huang @ Renderhosting

Many Windows users would agree that Microsoft Vista meet with all the hype that surrounded it. Although there were many great improvements from Windows XP, it had many bugs. Many Windows users still use Windows XP with Internet Explorer 6. In fact, according to my Google Analytics, most people still use IE6. Now they are coming up with an IE8?

http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?HeadlineIndex=37964

There has been a swirl of hype on Digg with screenshots of a supposably alpha stage IE8, which turns out to be a hoax Although the news that an IE8 is coming is not a hoax.

A former associated ask if I could recommend him some software to manage his clients. What he meant to say was he had to get away from using that Excel spreadsheet he had for 5 years. I did some research for him and came to the obvious conclusion that almost all CRM software are overpriced.

Of course, I did not want to simply point him to the most expensive suite of tools since his business is still a “startup”.

Here are some of the CRM packages out there:

• ACT! By Sage Premium 2008 - $369.99
  http://estore.act.com/ProductInfo.aspx?productid=ACTX2008_ES&campaignadcode=ACT10ESTORE
• NetSuite - $4800
  http://www.netsuite.com/portal/home.shtml
• Commence Suite for Small Business - $495 per license
  http://www.commence.com/purchase.asp

I realized how much of a demand CRM software is and how much vendors can mark up their prices.

I found an open source solution called SugarCRM–I installed and tested it out myself and everything seemed great! Got him to sign up with Renderhosting’s business plan, installed it for him and now he is one happy fellow.

SugarCRM - User Demo - Admin Demo

It feels good to offer people solutions that doesn’t cost hundreds or thousands of dollars! Exactly why I’m open to giving this offer to whoever is reading this blog entry.

CRM Solution - $19.95

The “$100 Laptop Project” is planning to release this November 12th. It is going to be sold for $399 per two laptops. The buyer gets to keep one laptop and the other laptop is then donated to somebody in a developing nation. This seems like a high cost compared to its original estimate of $100. However, the makers are still aiming that the costs will lower to meet $100. On the right is a breakdown of the costs for manufacturing the laptop.

Many online source point that Linux is the way to go, especially when it comes to Academia. Blogger Adam Zwakk points out a list of 9 reasons why schools should use Linux as opposed to Windows here.

Linux is definitely a more cost effective alternative to Windows–same with shared web hosting. Linux shared web hosting is pretty much guaranteed to be more cost effective than it’s Windows equivalent.

This digital artwork was created using Photoshop. It depicts a man enjoying his coffee in a very unusual way.

read more | digg story

Anti-Google sentiment is stirring in many webmaster and publisher forums. I will try my best to keep this blog thread from being another conspiracy theory. Digital Point, a huge webmasters forum, has countless threads complaining about Google’s new search engine policies and Google Adsense policies. For those who do not know, Google Adsense is a PPC advertisement service that pays publishers/webmasters an un-predetermined amount per click from the user.

Revised Google Search Scheme
Google have been cooking up some new stuff in their pot of search algorithms. In the past, building back links and link exchanges was a great way to help improve Search Engine results. Having links on directories was also a good way of improving Search Engine results. Seems like that is thrown out the window by Google, as many Internet entrepreneurs learn the hard way. This has given many directory owners a 360 degrees turn, turning their page 1 Search results into out of existence on Google.

Two recent Google related threads I saw
Back links issue in Google
My site has vanished from google completely after 2 years.

DP User’s New Directory PigeonRank
Google released a joke about their new “PigeonRank” system. Here is a response by one of a directory owner on Digital Point. This guy’s new PigeonRank for his directory–check it.

Google Adsense…BAN!
It is true that many people get banned from Google Adsense for violating the TOS. However, there were also many alledged cases of users that got banned for “invalid clicks” and this could be as broad as a user with nothing better to do than to click on the advertisements multiple times. Google Adsense used to be the sanction for webmasters to go to to generate revenue, but now it seems to be a war zone. If you survive, you get rewarded with the money you earn. But if you are unlucky, your account will be terminated and the chances of an appeal is slim. Many webmasters and Internet entrepreneurs are looking at alternative PPC services such as AdBrite, Bidvertiser, ValueClick, and many lenient ones.

Flip Side of Things
It is true that Google changed their algorithms so the search results would be more naturally and less inflated with paid directories. And yes, it is true that Google is tough on Adsense to protect the interest of Adwords users. But all of this is really screwing with the webmasters and publishers–is it really right for Google to make these rapid chances without informing the web community first? Or would this be a security flaw in their algorithms?

There is quite a number of entrepreneurs out there whose business takes advantage of Internet. Out of those entrepreneurs, a number of them run Internet businesses that are solely web based. For these web entrepreneurs, PageRank and unique visitors are two very important aspects to look at when it comes down to the net worth of their website. If the website is solely driven by advertisements and referral based ads, then the amount of traffic reflects heavily upon the amount of revenue generated.

Many webmasters out there value their Google PageRank because it does take a long time to build. Have you questioned what is the significance of this number? This number reflects upon the amount of traffic your website gets. However, it is not always accurate because this measures only traffic from mainly back links. If a person owns, for example, a web based proxy whose marketing is via mouth-to-mouth, then the PageRank of this proxy could be zero at the same time, getting 5,000 unique visitors daily.

Yan Huang’s question to you is… Do you care more about PageRank or unique visitors? If you say unique visitors, then why would you put so much, if any, emphasis on Google PageRank? Website with PR6 sell for thousands of dollars because it is assumed they receive unique visitors in the thousands per day. But if a PR6 website only gets a couple hundred unique visitors per day, how much is it really worth?

Google PageRank helps determine the potential amount of visitors the website receives, but why not just cut this intermediary off and go with unique visitors directly for determining a website’s worth?

I hope this article puts in some perspective next time you put too much emphasis on trying to boost your Google PageRank. Not to mention…Google is getting rid of it soon!

Yesterday, I attended the 5th LA Web Application Developers Meetup, as a presenter. This time it was hosted by Demand Media in Santa Monica–parking was great this time and they offered free pizza, soft drinks and beer.

Mark Politi, VP of Marketing from Planetwide Media, presented first on their online comic strip creator software. ComicStrip Character Creator is the name of it. Now what I like most about his online editor is that it is all built in Ajax so you don’t need any external software–not even Adobe Flash player! This is the online version of a desktop software that they have–it is also mashed up with the Google Images and Photobucket API. There are a few [x] images when you ue Google Images and slight pixelation but, overall, it is a really neat tool!

Instructions to play with it yourself:
Go to HyperComics.com, sign up for a free account. Once inside, click on Comic Strip and Character Creator.

Yan Huang (which is me from Renderhosting) presented next on all the little tricks and secrets that goes on in the shared web hosting world. I was one of those Myth Buster guys, busting down all the dirty schemes that shared web hosting companies played on their customers. Check our my PowerPoint presentation–I hope you find it useful, if not, entertaining. Also check out Renderhosting.net if you ever need shared hosting without as much BS as the other shared hosts!

Ben Alavi presented next on databases. I’m n00b compared to him when it comes to databases so I don’t have much to comment on. I found his blog at http://www.benalavi.com so check that out and you can download his presentation here. Maybe if you are a DBA or someone that works with databases a lot, you could take advantage of that link.

Tom Dean, Solutions Architect from Demand Media, gave his presentation on Memcached. In the 1st LA Web Application Developer’s meetup, there was a presentation on Memcached but Tom really nailed it with his! If you want to use memached, here is the Official Memached website. LiveJournal, Facebook, and a lot of other large sites use it so it’s pretty much proven to work. Tom’s company is also hiring developers (PHP and .NET I believe?) so if you need a job, you can check them out at their office at 1333 2nd Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401 or at their careers page–it is right next to Santa Monica beach so great location to work in!

Last night was a great meetup! Thank you Will Jessup (check out Kevo!) for organizing it and thank you Demand Media for hosting it!!

We got the Renderhosting.net blog up! I will keep you guys up to date on what’s going on in the hosting world and keep you keyed in on the latest technologies out there!