CVS is a convenience store on a ton of street corners where I live where I go sometimes to have photos developed and pick up mouth wash when I run low. I had no idea until recently that there was something known as CVS Hosting that is pre-installed on all A2 Hosting servers.

CVS stands for Concurrent Versions System. Huh? CVS is an open-source, version control system. Huh again? I’ll dig into this a bit deeper in a second, but the purpose of CVS certainly makes sense. The objective is to track all the work and changes to a software project that is being worked on by a number of developers.

I have discussed open-source on this blog before, but a quick refresher is that it is any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit.

Version control is a way to mange changes to one piece of information. It helps multiple programmers keep track of revisions to a program that is being edited by a number of people/programmers. An example of this is a Wikipedia. There are many people that edit this online encyclopedia, but it also tracks each of these changes and allows you to revert back to a previous version of a specific article. This helps to make sure that not one person can screw up a particular project and if a make is made, it is easy to go back to a previous version.

I wanted to bring to the attention an issue that has been occurring with domain registration. I have been reading recently about a somewhat unethical practice. Anyone that has registered a domain name before knows that one of the first steps is to look up the domain name within the domain registrant’s site. Generally you will receive information such as whether or not the domain name is available for sale, how much it costs and suggestions for other domain names if it isn’t available.

I have read that some domain registrants are actually taking this information and jacking up the prices of the domains that are searched but aren’t immediately registered. Of course there is nothing illegal about this practice, but I wanted to make sure that this issue was brought up on this blog.

My suggestion is to always get a second quote on a domain name. Don’t just go to the same domain registrant every time just because that’s the one you have always gone to. At least get a second quote on the domain name because the price that they quote on the domain name may not be the going rate. Don’t get discouraged if you find the domain name you want to be overly expensive. You might be able to find a cheaper price elsewhere. I am obviously biased that you should register your domain name with A2 Hosting and don’t want to sound like a hypocrite because you should always get a second quote even if we were your first quote, but A2 Hosting has a flat cost for our domain names. Just some food for thought.

As A2 Hosting continues to grow, so do our support hours. Our amazing technical support staff now supports our growing client base from 9AM-12PM EST, Monday through Friday via the phone, support tickets and live chat. In addition, support hours have also expanded on the weekends from 10:00 AM-6 PM EST.

As you can see, if you are in need of hosting support, there’s a good chance that based on these expanded hours, our support staff will be there to help. If you happen to encounter something during one of those rare off-support times or you prefer to figure out a problem on your own, don’t forget about our extensive amount of information available via the A2 Hosting Knowledgebase, the A2 Hosting Wiki, as well as our Customer Forums.

Trust me, I know from experience that we have a top notch hosting staff. Being the “marketing guy” there have been plenty of times when I have needed assistance and one of the members of the support staff has given me quick, solid and most importantly knowledgeable help. One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone makes you feel brainless if you are not knowledgeable in a particular subject. I can promise you that that will never happen at A2 Hosting.

With A2 Hosting shared discount package, you get a ton of disk space and monthly data transfer for just pennies a day. For as low as $3.45 per month, you can host your site with us and get 10 GB of disk space and 10 GB data transfer.

And when hosting with us, you always get the latest hosting technology. Get awesome hosting control with cPanel 11 and hone the power of PHP 5. See all of these goodies for yourself by visiting our shared hosting page.

If $3.45 is still breaking the bank a bit, we’ll even let you take an additional 15% off the top with the coupon code a2forum0308. If you’re ready to love your hosting company, then sign up for your account today!

We are by no means a discount hosting provider. We just know that not everyone has the same hosting needs and there is no such thing as “one hosting package fits all”.

I was in the midst of writing a blog ranting about how I really wanted Google to do a PageRank update because I was tired of going to my page everyday and seeing that it had a “0” as a rank. It was getting kind of disheartening. Here is a bit of my rant…

What I am really itching for is a Google PageRank. I want to see what sort of vote/voice I have on the internet in regards to this blog. In my blog predicting the next PageRank update, I predicted the next PageRank update would occur in mid January. Looking at the calendar, it is now mid-January and still no PageRank…

So I went to my page to confirm that it still had a rank of a “0” and low and behold, Adventures In Hosting had a PageRank of 3! I have to say that I’m pretty excited right now. It is pretty fulfilling to see this fairly new blog has a fairly nice rank. I was even about to write that I would even be happy with a rank of 1 because anything was better than a 0.

I was right on with my prediction that the stats would be updated in mid-January. I might as well throw another prediction out there so that I have another benchmark goal to possibly get a point boost or two in regards to my PageRank by then. I am going to say that the next update is going to occur at the beginning of April.

For those of you still considering writing a blog, but have yet to, I think that this is a perfect example that with a little bit of creativity, promotion and most importantly taking time to write an update everyday, anyone can create a bit of a niche for themselves on the web.

When I was hired by A2 Hosting, I wasn’t quite sure of what the “A2” referred to in the name. I felt like a super sleuth because I tried to do some research behind it and come up with different theories about what the A2 could have stood for. My super sleuthing skills have given me a hunch that some of our customers have also pondered what the A2 could be referring to. I had a lot of leads, but a lot of them didn’t make sense in a web hosting context.

Pythagorean Theorem

I thought back to the early high school math classes and remembered the Pythagorean Theorem where A2+B2=C2 helps define the lengths and angles of a triangle. Of course that didn’t make much sense because the “2”’s in the equation are actually squares, which isn’t the case in A2 Hosting.

Paper Size

A2 is actually the name of a fairly common paper size that is 420mm x 594mm.Would a web hosting company be named after a paper size? Not likely.

Type of Web Hosting

Was “A” a type of web hosting and the “2” mean that we were twice as good as normal “A” hosting? That was a stretch.

Stainless Steel

A2 is a grade of stainless steel. Was this to say that our web hosting was strong like steel and also stainless meaning we could never be marred or blemished? This sounded like my best possibility going into my first day of work.

So I went into my first day assured that we were strong like steel and could never be blemished. Little did I know that when I walked into the office building, our address was actually 2A. My dumb stainless steel theory was immediately thrown out the window. We were A2 Hosting in office 2A. That had to be correct.

So as my first day ensued, I needed to get validation that we were A2 Hosting because we were in suite 2A. This is how my conversation with the owner played out.

Me: So we are A2 Hosting because we are located in office 2A, right?

Owner: A2 is actually a nickname for the two A’s in Ann Arbor.

Me: Oh.

I honestly knew that all along! You believe me, right?

It is time for another game of “What keyword climbing up A2 Hosting’s analytics rankings”. Today’s contestant is symfony hosting. Let’s explore and learn a little more about symfony hosting.

Symfony is a PHP web application framework designed via model-view-controller. As what usually occurs when breaking down these complex concepts, I end up defining these terms with a big mouthful of crazy terms. This one is of no exception. It is time to break down the rule meaning here.

PHP

PHP is a reflective programming language. When a computer language is reflective, it means that the computer program can adjust its own behavior as it is being run. PHP is a server side programming language meaning that the web programmer runs scripts (files that have sequences of commands) directly on the web server to make web pages that are animated, interactive and can change at any time. To read more about PHP, visit A2 Hosting’s PHP page.

Web Application Framework

A web application framework supports the creation of interactive websites. Its objective is to reduce the cost of basic activities involved in website creation.

Model-View-Controller (MVC)

MVC is a way for certain programs to create and maintain a number of views of the same data that fall into three different categories. These categories are:

Models – necessary for maintenance of the data

Views – necessary for viewing all or just portions of the data

Controllers – necessary for managing occasions that impact the model and the views

Basically, all of these definitions lead to one conclusion and that is that symfony’s objective is to ease the process of creating and managing web applications and to reduce the amount of recurring program coding tasks.

One of the keywords that has slowly climbed the A2 Hosting Google Analytic charts has been TikiWiki hosting. This is another one of those hosting terms that I should be familiar with, but haven’t quite gotten there quite yet.

TikiWiki, originally called Tiki CMS/Groupware, is a Groupware, open source content management system. If certain steps are taken, TikiWiki can become a Geospatial Content Management System (GeoCMS). Let’s break this down a bit.

Breaking Down TikiWiki

*Groupware is software that is designed to help those seeking to accomplish similar tasks to reach their goals.

*An open source program refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit.

*A content management system is one that allows for the management of content on the web.

*In particular, a GeoCMS is a specific kind of content management system where a number of different objects (i.e. images) can be placed displayed on a particular position within an interactive map online.

*TikiWiki becomes a GeoCMS if MapServer is used. MapServer is an open source programming environment used for building geographical web applications.

Goals of TikiWiki

*Helps create and manage content

*Helps organize content

* Helps improve communication

* Aims to make the above three tasks as easy as possible

This week’s forum posting…

You could say that the Extreme package is the granddaddy of all of the A2 Hosting’s VPS packages. That’s because it is by far the most powerful VPS package that we have to offer. We think you’ll be impressed with the potent Extreme package. You get 1024 MB Dedicated RAM, 50 GB of disk space and 500 GB of monthly transfer space. Here are the details of what comes with each of our VPS hosting packages.

VPS Feature Overview:

HyperVM Control Panel
Choice of Linux operating system from a number of OS templates
Ability to reload and re-image your VPS at any time
Full root access
Boot, shutdown and reboot controls
Access to install or compile your own custom software
Full control over network services running on your VPS
Port monitoring and IP blocking

Choice of A2 Hosting custom OS templates

Specific specifications for the Extreme VPS Package include:

1024 MB Dedicated RAM (2048 MB Burstable)

50 GB Disk Space

500 GB Monthly Transfer

8 IP Addresses

CPU Share: 8x

And just like all A2 Hosting packages - FREE Setup!

Make sure to take advantage of our brand new 15% off coupon for forum readers. Use the code a2forum0308, expiring on 3/31/2007.

I have recently been working on a PPC campaign for A2 Hosting and I panicked all of a sudden because I had set up all the ads in Google’s ad format. We wanted to advertise on MSN, Google and Yahoo. I was wondering if I would have to format all of the ads in 3 separate fashions. Luckily, each search engine is set up a bit differently, but quite similar. I thought I could reference the different ad formats below so you wouldn’t have to.

Google

Headline - 25 characters

Ad Text - 2 separate 35 character input lines

Display URL - 35 characters

Destination URL - 1024 characters

MSN

Title - 25 characters

Ad Text - 70 characters with 2 lines in the ad, 1 box for inputting ad text

Display URL - 35 characters

Destination URL - 1022 characters

Yahoo

Title- Up to 40 characters covering 2 lines

Ad text - 70 characters cover up to 3 lines of ad text, 1 box for inputting ad text

Destination/Display URL - 70 characters

There are some differences in the different variations, but the main one that I see is that Yahoo does not have a display URL, only a destination URL. This means that with Yahoo, you will always know the landing page that you will be going to, compared to MSN and Google where you will know the general URL, but not the specific landing page.