My Merchant Account Blog

When Your Website Outgrows Your Server

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

One of the main goals in starting a website is to attract as many traffic as possible. In fact, if your website is business-oriented then the heavy traffic will most likely result to additional profits. But when you reach your target traffic or when it even surpasses the same, a serious problem on your server might occur. This problem arises when your website has already outgrown your server.

If you are a website owner, you cannot just ignore this problem because this might even result to a downtime to your website. In fact, this aspect should be addressed in the first stage of getting online. Yes, I'm referring to the time when you are looking for the right web hosting provider. So what are the aspects to consider then? Two critical factors to be considered are the bandwidth and disk space allotted to you by the web host.

In choosing the correct disk space, you should always keep in mind the size of your website. Whether you will post photos, videos or music files should be considered. You should also address the possible growth of your website. Always secure some disk space for expansion especially if your target market is on its peak. Remember lack of disk space can shut your operations for a while and this is a no-no when it comes to your website's availability.

The next thing to consider is the bandwidth. It is also a must to address this early because it determines the amount of usage possible in your website. It includes the transfer rates of users, both for upload and download. Also, take note that the bandwidth aspect can affect the loading time of your website and a slow website surely annoys its visitors.

In summary, disk space and bandwidth are two important factors in choosing your web host. By addressing this early, the probability of your website outgrowing your server will be low. Thus 24/7 website uptime can be guaranteed.

Going Back to the Dark Ages

Saturday, March 12, 2011

A few years ago, I remember talking with others about designing a website in a static layout, focusing on a 1280X800 resolution.  Some webmasters would do a fluid layout, giving up on some layout properties.  Throughout all these years, the first number (1280) is the width and the second number (800) was the height.  This was really never an issue for webmasters - the layout was always in a landscape mode.

Now with smartphones and iPads, things have changed.  Landscape has become portrait.   It almost like webmasters are starting over.  A lot of companies and webmasters are offering a mobile version for their users.  Maybe a year ago, this might mean less images or even none - since mobile carriers would charge the user for data usage.  Now, most carriers are offering a flat rate for data usage and the networks are getting faster. 

iPad Resolution

If a user is holding the iPad like a book, it is in portrait mode.  This means, the resolution is 768X1024.  A little over one year ago, about 1% of users were still using a screen resolution of 800X600.  Now, less than 1% is using this resolution, since monitors are getting cheaper and can also function as a television.

When the user turns the iPad, it is now in landscape mode and the resolution is 1024X768.  In January 2010, about 20% of web users had this resolution.  This decreased about 6% in January 2011, but it will probably increase as iPad users upgrade and sell their "old" iPads.

Mobile Versions

Some webmasters will add code to their website to help determine if a user is viewing the website on a mobile phone.  This might work, but keep in mind that Microsoft threw a cog in this function in Windows Mobile 7 phones.  A user can change the settings on Internet Explorer to use a Mobile or Desktop Version.

While there are good reasons to use a static or fluid layout, webmasters are usually controlled by the client who wants it a certain way.  Personally, we just try to offer the choice between a mobile and full version on our websites. 

Mobile Virtual Terminal

In keeping with the theme of this blog, we would like to remind our readers that the Quantum Gateway offers a virtual terminal for the mobile phone (or smartphone).

Best Practices in Electronic Payment Processing for Web Hosts

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

We wanted to remind our readers that we will be once again be attending Hosting Con 2007 in Chicago, Illinois from July 23 - July 25, 2007.  We will be in booth 812 this year.  Also, we wanted to inform you that we will actually be speaking on Tuesday, July 24 on Best Practices in Electronic Payment Processing for Web Hosts.

If you have anything that you would like see covered in our presentation, please contact us and let us know.

Microsoft Expression Web Designer

Sunday, October 08, 2006

Since Corey Bryant was nominated for Microsoft Most Valueable Professional for Frontpage, I decided to take on the newest edition to the family - Microsoft Expression Web Designer (EWD).

Having a recent hard drive crash, I had to reinstall my operating system and program files. I took this opportunity to install Microsoft Expression Web Designer since the words BETA and Microsoft can bring chills to the computer user.

After installing, I opened a website with the Expression Web Designer. And then I went to a new page. It automatically put the DOCTYPE in there and it chose Transitional XHTML. Can Microsoft be changing the ways it views code?

I then went to Tools - Page Editor Options to see what goodies that had installed there. They had an Authoring tab which allowed you to choose different DOCTYPEs. Once again, very nice. Now I wonder if I chose HTML Transitional - would it know not to close the META tag Content-Type? I opened a new page and sure enough, the tag was not closed as in XHTML.

It stills adds that   in the empty cells but instead of using the attribute width for the table tag, it actually used styles. So let’s try the style sheets – what might happen here? I created a new style sheet, typed in bo and I saw body. And then for the attribute, I typed in wid and saw width and hit the tab key to complete. So far, it seems that Microsoft might have a pretty good winner here.

Do I Do It Myself

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Usually when you want to start selling products - you have a few different options. Download a shopping cart and set it up. Or locate an ecommerce company that only does shopping carts. Or maybe hire someone to do it.

Some downloaded shopping carts are very easy and you just have an admin section to add your products and then you choose what electronic payment gateway that you want to use. Very simple, but what about your design? Can you incorporate that into the cart?

If you are using a WYSIWYG editor, like Frontpage or Dreamweaver, chances are that you might not even know HTML. If this is the case, you will spend your valuable time trying to learn the basics and then you have to learn the server side language. This might take you weeks or most likely months. It would be cheaper if you hired someone to do the development work.

You can also use a company that hosts the cart themselves. The problem with this, you are usually tied to them for life. Moving to another hosting company or provider can prove to be very difficult. And if any changes are needed, you might have to shell out hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands of dollars, for those changes. Plus some of them take a percentage of your sale as well - so on top of paying the merchant account fees and the electronic payment gateway fees, you will be paying something to the shopping cart host.

For example, the LinkPoint Gateway (aka First Data Global Gateway) is very limiting to what is supported by a merchant account providers.  For some merchants, a hosted solution can be invaluable.  And for others, it can be very limiting - almost to the point of causing your business to lose money every month. 

So what do we recommend?  We recommend a shopping cart that you purchase (includes the source code), a hosting provider (like Techevolution) a merchant account through Mile High Merchant Account and the Quantum Gateway.  This way, as your business grows, Techevolution will be there to help you on the hosting side, a partner of CDGCommerce will be there on the processing side and the Quantum Gateway will protect you against fraudulent transactions.  No one else in the industry will be able to help you grow at a fast, secure, and stable rate.

Do I Need a Web Site

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

I would say yes.  Twenty years ago for a business to be considered legitimate, you needed to have a toll-free phone number.  Now in the 21st century it seems a business has to have a web site. 

Your business is ever changing and so is your web site.  Your web site should reflect what your business is doing today.  There are millions of people accessing the net every second.  Your web site should have all the information needed for a customer to be able to get the most basic questions answered.  Your web site should have a contact form along with an email address.  Some people prefer to use an email for tracking purposes.  Using a contact form can help stop web bots from capturing your email address and spamming you. 

Own Your Own Domain Name

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

I see this at least once a week.  Someone calls or emails me saying they are having a difficult time changing hosting companies.  Or their web developer / web designer won't release their domain name.

Always make sure that when you register a domain name, the domain name is in your name, not someone else's.  For example, if you were to buy a new home, you would not put the title in the real estate agent's name, would you?  Of course not!   So why would your web developer need your domain name in his / her name?  There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for this to happen. 

If you check and find out that your domain name is not in your name, contact the individual or company at once.  Find out how you can get the domain name in your name.  You are paying for it. 

Speaking of which - make sure that the contract you sign does not allow the designer / developer to put the domain name in his / her name.  You always want the domain name in your name for control.