Loklo Media 3D Animation Blog

Often times I find myself on the internet.  Well, that is, when I’m not working.  Which is usually only for a few minutes a day. Or something like that.

So in these rare times when I’m online, I tend to search for information, research, reviews, benchmarks, articles, etc.  Some of the pages I stumble on are very useful and I either stop searching, due to a satisfied goal, or I get pointed in the next best direction.  Either way, I often want to say thanks to these sites.

So I click an ad. *GASP*

Yes.  I click ads as a way of saying thanks to my purveyors of information.  I know they don’t add up to much – typically a google ad click pays less than $0.50 (50 cents).  But hey, I think it’s pretty fair.

You may or may not have noticed ads on my blog, if you read via rss, then you probably haven’t.  They’re there.  I’m not allowed to tell you to click them.  But if you’re wanting to say thanks for anything I’ve posted or will post… you know what to do

So – you need a website, and a domain, and have somehow narrowed the choice of domain provider and hosting solution down to either GoDaddy or Hostmonster.

My “authority” on the subject: I provide some web design services and I operate over a dozen of my own various sites.

So, here’s what I can share with you from my own personal experience with both.  Personally, and for Loklo Media, I use GoDaddy for my domains and deluxe hosting plan.

GoDaddy

I find that the “backend” controls are a bit confusing, but very powerful in what they allow and provide.  Recently the Deluxe hosting went from 1500MB (1.5 GB) of Bandwidth per month to Unlimited, which is awesome.  (I don’t use much bandwidth, and neither will you, unless you’re streaming movies, or offering several large files for public download consumption).  It also gives me 1.5GB of storage.  Now, while it’s not “unlimited”, it’s still more than I’ll ever use.  And I use a lot.  The “average” website will normally use less than 100MB, with 1-2 databases.  But the deluxe plans allow me to host multiple sites (multiple domains) on the same plan.  So, as I said above, I’ve got about a dozen or more sites, but I don’t have to pay for extra hosting.  Just domain purchase and renewals.
I like my GoDaddy setup.  FTP works, and had I been more wise at the beginning of it all, I would have requested to have my account set up with SSH access instead of FTP.  I can still transfer over to a SSH account, but it means backing up all of my databases and transferring them, which I don’t want to do.  So I just live with FTP for now. (If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).

Domain Sale! $7.49 .com at GoDaddy
$1.99 Web Hosting

Hostmonster

Hostmonster is great for the price… it’s low, and it’s “unlimited” (fine print says that unlimited is more of a loosely defined “lots”, and they say “within reason”).  Though you can hace unlimited storage, bandwidth, subdomains, domains, emails, databases, etc.  Price for price, feature for feature, Hostmonster is a better deal than GoDaddy.  But I prefer GoDaddy’s backend over Hostmonster’s backend most of the time.

Hostmonster uses the fairly standard cPanel for backend control of features, stats, email, settings, etc.  This is nicer for the average user, and is easier to drill down and find the feature or setting you want to change.  But I find that it’s not as flexible once you want to make a change.  At least with DNS type stuff.

I personally don’t use Hostmonster, but it’s what I recommend for my clients – of course I always give them a choice, and let them have it in their (or their business) name.  So I’ve used it a fair amount.

Sign Up For Hostmonster Hosting and Free Domain

I’ve decided to become a mirror for a popular PC technician diagnostic CD image, called Hiren’s Boot CD. It’s an awesome disk, which should be in every geek’s bench. It is bootable, and gives you all sorts of drive, partition, diagnostic, etc type tools, as well as AV scans, testing and more within windows through it’s AutoRun Menu. Check it Out!
http://www.hirensbootcd.net/

Loklo Media is also sponsoring the new Lethbridge News website. It’s by the people, for the people, etc type news. If you’re from Lethbridge, you should head over there too.

Cheers!

Well, after deliberating, procrastinating, “designing” and researching for over a year, I’ve finally got the www.loklomedia.com website updated. Much cleaner, simpler, and faster to edit and change. I was trying to get it to be a part of this WordPress system, but after trying to wrap my head around all the .htaccess mods necessary, I gave up. so I installed a CMSMS system (which I generally prefer over Joomla for most things), customized a template, loaded it with content, and set it live.

I would REALLY love some comments and feedback on it. The old site is still available at www.loklomedia.com/old-site for comparison sake – but I might not stay there forever.

I’ve got some WordPress themes coming soon. A Variety of designs. Keep coming back for more info. Add comments to this post if you have any requests.