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1and1 Hosting - Raising the bar

First, I have to admit. I'm a terrible customer.  I'm a demanding perfectionist who rarely feels that he is getting his money's worth.  This is especially true of hosting providers.  In the past four years, I've had to change providers at least six times because I felt that I was not getting what I paid for. This brief commentary is somewhat of a treat for me as I finally get to say something good about a hosting provider!

A little over two years ago I was reading up on the latest technologies in one of my favorite publications, eWeek, when I ran across a nice, full-page ad from 1and1 offering an introductory offer of free hosting for three years.  Wait! What! No way!  This has got to be too good to be true! Off to the trusty computer I go...

Sure enough, it was the real deal. 1and1 was indeed offering free web hosting for three years to introduce its new public sector hosting service.  Well, like any good cash-strapped college student, I stepped right up and got me a piece of the pie. I've got to say, the pie was good too!

After roughly two years of hosting with 1and1, with minimal problems I should say, I started to notice that I was getting dangerously close to the bandwidth allowance my free package had to offer. No big surprise there; these things happen when you're trying to establish an online presence and you offer free downloads.  It was time to upgrade my hosting.

At the time, there were no great specials going on at 1and1 so I decided to shop around. That was a tremendous mistake! What I got was a course in how *not* to run a hosting service.  I will be polite, this time, and not name and companies, but let's just say stay away from cheap reseller hosting accounts!  The uptime is nowhere near what they promise and every time you turn around some idiot is running a script that bogs the server down to a crawl.

After a couple months, a chunk of wasted cash, and several moves back and forth between providers, I finally conceded that 1and1 was indeed the best host I had come across thus far. As luck would have it, I had received an email from 1and1 announcing a great promotion for their free preview package holders (obvious marketing trick, but good timing in my situation).  They were offering their top shared Linux package for half the price.  Ok, that sounds like a good deal, and it was, but what about next year? Well, this is where it gets even better.  Not only did I get the package at half price, but they guaranteed that price for three years with free upgrades!

I might not be the brightest light bulb in the box, but I know a good deal when I see one.  So, as I'm sure you've already figured out, I signed up.  What I got was a whole lot more than what I bargained for, and honestly, could have hoped for.  Almost instantly after upgrading, I noticed that my sites were running faster.  I'm assuming that paid customers are placed on less crowded servers.  

Then, the first upgrade came.  My space and bandwidth were doubled at no extra charge.  I thought to myself, cool, I'll take it!  A couple weeks later, I was browsing the 1and1 site comparing features for a potential client when I noticed that the package I have had been bumped to ridiculously high levels.  Even though I was getting my money's worth at the time, I felt a little bitter that I wasn't getting the full package spec.  After all, I was promised that I would get every package upgrade.

Just like any other nightmare client, I promptly dialed billing to give them a piece of my mind.  Apparently, the billing agent was no stranger to difficult clients like me.  Within a few minutes of talking to me, he got me defused and assured me that my package would be brought up to spec within four weeks. That was two weeks ago.  He explained that it was taking more time than expected to upgrade all their current accounts to the new account specs.  He really surprised me when he said that I'd actually be getting more than what was currently listed on the site. What?!  Ok then! Thank you for your time!  Needless to say, I was left feeling very positive about that support call.

Here's where we get into the numbers... When I logged into my account today, I was greeted by some very generous numbers for the package I have.  I discovered that I now have 30,000MB of storage and 1,500 GB of transfer on a shared hosting account that normally runs $19.99/mo! Wait!  That can't be right! Those are VPS specs!  Yup, you read right. 30GB of storage and 1.5TB of transfer for under $20/mo. PLUS, with 1and1, I only pay $5.99 per domain, per year.  

Now, let's be real here.  Those numbers are great and all, but other providers offer similar specs.  What sets 1and1 apart?  For starters, uptime!  With every other host I've used, uptime was a major issue.  This is not so with 1and1.  I can count on one hand how many times in the past two years my site was not available and nearly every time it was related to an ISP router, not 1and1! Also, one of the things I've really grown to appreciate is their one-of-a-kind control panel.  It's a little slow, but it more than makes up for it in streamlined administration.  This is especially true of the domain administration.  Even complete n00bs have no problem navigating the 1and1 control panel and managing their package like a pro.

Again, I'm not the easiest person in the world to impress, especially when it comes to hosting providers.  Nevertheless, 1and1 has really raised the bar of what a good hosting provider is in my mind.  They are now the benchmark by which I will measure all hosting providers.  If you are in the market for a good, reliable, affordable hosting provider, I cannot say enough positive about 1and1.  

There is only one negative I've found with 1and1 and it's not even really a negative. They're a bit restrictive on script execution.  If you think about it, in a shared hosting environment, this is a good thing, and this also explains why the only time I've noticed the server actually being down was during a scheduled hardware upgrade. Now, who's going to complain about a free upgrade in performance?

If you would like more information on 1and1 and the packages they offer, I encourage you to visit their site.  Just as a point of reference, I'm running on the Developer Package.  I think you'll find that it's a more than adequate package for moderate to heavy traffic sites.

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What Makes You Better?

Sales people are frequently confronted by this question on sales calls, along with some others like "why should I buy from you/your company?" or "what makes you different?". In fact, as identified in my last post, they have probably spent a lot of time at "Product Knowledge U" learning exactly how to answer these questions. In reality, answering questions like these usually end up putting you on the defensive and will not give you the advantage you are hoping for.

Think about it for a minute... if you answer that question you immediately sound like all of the sales people that have come before you, as well as those who will follow you. By answering the question you create "sameness" and a belief in the mind of the prospect that you are just like everyone else. You must also consider that everything you say will be considered as "sales fodder" and is often listened to with skepticism and from an "oh sure" perspective.

Obviously, there are many different situations in which this questions can be asked. Are they currently buying this product from someone else. Is this a product they have bought in the past, or is it a product they have never bought? Knowing which situation you are in will help you determine how best to proceed. Rather than answer the question, you might want to say "I'd be happy to tell you but I'm curious, is this a product that you have used in the past or are currently buying?". Their answer will be a valuable piece of information from which we can plan our next question.

If they are currently using or have had past experience, it would make a lot more sense to find out what they have used in the past. If they are looking to make a change "what would they like to see different?" This is a questions that would get us information that would begin to form our offer, or identify that we don't have what they want. Remember too, if they are not buying or have not used before, giving away your information can now become a shopping list that will allow them to compare you to the competition and "commoditize" your offer.

Not always, but often times the best answer to a question is another question. By not answering the question but rather asking:

"Was there something that you were hoping would be better?", or

"if we could offer something different or better what were you hoping for?"

With these questions you end up with the chance of finding out exactly what they are looking for and can craft your response based on the feedback you get.

It takes some courage and emotional control to respond this way but you'll find it will put you in an entirely different light with your prospect. Stop answering "what makes you better" and you'll get better information that will help you make more sales!

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Best Text Editor for Coding on Linux

In this post want to mangulas 7 best text editors are cool, rich in features and very useful to use for you Linux user coders.

1. Sublime

In a poll attempted by Fossbytes. Sublime text is accompanied by Atom and Vim which is a text editor that is a favorite of its users. Sublime's text editor is built with full features meant for code, markup and prose. Create support natively with tons of programming languages and markup languages. Wearing the plugin, Sublime comes with a free-license application, one can extend the use of this text editor." Goto Anything" is a popular feature of sublime text editor that allows you to quickly navigate to files, lines and symbols. Other main features of this sublime text editor include: command palette, Python-based plugin API, simultaneous editing, project-specific preferences, and others.

2. Atom

Atom is an open source and free text editor developed by GitHub. Sourced on Electron( CoffeeScript, JS, Less, HTML), Atom is a desktop application built using web technology. Often spoken like a 21st century text editor, Atom is a modern text editor that can be configured to its core. The main features that atom has are cross-platform editing, built-in package manager, file system browser, multiple pane support, find and replace function, and smart autocompletion. You can sort through over 1000 open source packages and upgrade new features into Atom. Which seems atoms are easily customized to suit your needs and style.

3. Visual Studio Code

There are a variety of options when sorting out the best Linux text editors that you can use to get things done every day. One of them is Visual Studio Code, made by Microsoft which is entirely open source and the source code can be accessed on GitHub. Showing a modern look, VS Code introduces rugged yet lightweight performance. There is an extensive bibliotech extension that allows support for more languages, commands, debuggers, etc. These cross-platform tools( Linux, macOS, and Windows) come with out-of-the-box support for TypeScript, JavaScript, and Node. Js.

4. Vim

Vim and Vi IMproved, which is an advance text editor that aims to provide more powerful performance and expand the capabilities of Unix editor namely Vi. This text editor can be easily configured to serve the needs of developers. That's why Vim is often spoken to by programmers' editors designed to be used in comand line interfaces and standalone applications in guises. On the contrary, for newcomers it is possible to have difficulty when wearing this text editor, in addition to identifying if Vim is one of the powerful text editors among the ranks of text editors. Must be underlined Vim provides automatic commands, digraph input, split screen, session screen, tab expansion, coloring syntax, and tag system. Vim is written in C and Vim scripts.

5. GNU Emacs

GNU Emacs has a good chance to become one of the favorite text editors for Linux users. GNU Emacs, created by the GNU Project founded by Richard Stallman. This text editor is a popular type used by linux developers and enthusiasts around the world. Written using Lisp and C programming language, this free software is extensible using a complete programming language. GNU Emacs users can also enjoy extensive support from the documentation and tutorials. There are also extensions that can be used such as debugger interface, mail and news.

6. Geany

Geany is the best text editor integrated with GTK+ toolkit that generates excellent development zones. If you're looking for something text editor that feels more like freeware, Geany is the perfect option for you. This lightweight freeware supports all major programming languages and has very little dependency from other packages.

Geany features a pluggable interface, syntax highlighting, line numbering and many others. Geany embossed with a clean look, some options that can be customized. This editor is written in C and C++ languages.

7. Brackets

Brackets is a popular text editor issued by Adobe in 2014 after that. This free text editor comes with Live Preview, Inline Editing, support for focused visual tools Preprocessor, and other interesting features. Supported and created from an early age, brackets are dedicated to web designers and front-end developers. Not only lightweight, this open source text editor comes with all the qualities of a modern text editor. Brackets are written with HTML, CSS and JavaScript.