I understand that I might be coming a little late to this party, but I thought it deserved a post anyway. A little background first, up until about a week ago I had a virtual private server (VPS) with HostMySite.com (HMS). I had been a customer of theirs for about 2 years and was pleased with the service and offerings. But recently I wanted to try some new things that required an updated version of PHP. HMS said I couldn’t get the newer version of PHP without upgrading my account and changing control panels over to CPanel. Needless to say I was saddened by this news so I started shopping around.

Below are my 10 reasons why I switched my hosting over to (mt) Media Temple:

1. More Bang for the Buck

Let’s face it, web hosting has become a commodity. There are so many providers today that you can always find one that does it cheaper or gives you more for less. The only true litmus test that I have been able to find is the companies reputation among other developers and who their customers are. I’ve heard a lot of good things about (mt) for a while, they almost have a cult following among certain bloggers. I even  gave them a serious look two years ago when I was shopping but their lack of “hold my hand” support scared me away.

This time however I took a look at their (dv) Dedicated-Virtual numbers and was very pleased. I need at least 512 MB of ram because of what I run on my server so their Rage offering caught my eye, 40GB of disc space and 1.5TB of bandwidth for $100.00/month. It was $40 more a year than HostMySite would have been but (mt) had the version of PHP I wanted along with Plesk. I called their sales team and was sold the next day.

2. The Right Version of PHP

Those of you that don’t use the Plesk server control panel won’t have much of a reference, but for those of you that do will probably understand. Plesk ownes your server. You have to be very careful when making changes via SSH to make them in such a way that it won’t break Plesk or be overwritten the next time Plesk reboots Apache. So when HMS told me I couldn’t install the new version of PHP I sort of understood but was bummed all the same. Then I found (mt) and they claimed to have the new version of PHP, MySQL and running Plesk. This was a major selling point for me.

3. The Right Kind of Support

Ask anybody and they will tell you that Chris Monnat is a software person… not hardware. So when it comes to server administration I am very leary. In the past I have always looked for hosting companies that offer what I refer to as “hold my hand” support. Whether they are supposed to help me or not I can call them up with a question or request and they are able to assist me or at least point me in the right direction. I guess in the industry this is referred to as completely managed hosting. But over the years I’ve learned some things about server administration and have become more comfortable with doing things on my own.

(mt) comes right out and says they are not a managed hosting provider. They will make sure your server is running, the hardware is working and that it is connected to the web… the other things are pretty much up to you. That concerned me in the brginning, but then I saw their Knowledgebase and user forum. The Knowledgebase is full of step by step how-to’s on topics I would used to call support to help me with. Now I just bring up the instructions and do it myself. In the end (mt) offers less support than I’m used to but I feel better about it because I’m learning more and getting more experience myself. It’s totally cool!

4. Backups and a Firewall

When you talk to most people they have their own system setup for making backups of their sites. Whether it’s automatic or manual they each have a way. With the version of Plesk I have through (mt) the backup utility is enabled so now I can have Plesk take care of all of my backing up on a scheduled or manual basis. I can even have Plesk FTP to backup to another account or server for off-site storage and it doesn’t cost me anything extra. For those who need a little more, (mt) also offers Snapshot Backups for an extra $20/month.

Firewalls are another one of those things that most hosting companies try to charge you extra for. The Plesk install on my (dv) came with a software firewall module available and (mt) provides isntructions in their knowledgebase to help me configure it. So right off the bat I can have a more secure server with a software firewall I can configure myself without spending any extra money.

5. Update Option Program

This was the #1 thing that made me sign-up with (mt). Those of you who use Plesk can probably share my pain when I talk about updating the Plesk control panel software. Parallels, the makers of Plesk, provide an automatic updater within Plesk to help with updating the software but my fellow Plesk users and I know it doesn’t work and potentially leaves your server in a diminished state. (mt) knows this and that’s why they offer the update option program (UOP) which will automatically upgrade Plesk for the servers that are enrolled. (mt) goes to great lengths testing and configuring new Plesk versions to make sure it doesn’t break anything before pushing updates out. So you get the benefit of running updated Plesk software without the hassel of doing it yourself and enrollment in the UOP is free of charge.

6. Simple Account Center

You don’t really know how important an easy to use account management tool is until it’s gone. (mt)’s AccountCenter (where you go to manage your billing, contacts, etc.) is very nicely designed and super easy to use. You can use the AccountCenter to manage your domains host records on their name servers, add new domains, manage your server, manage billing, manage account contacts and request support from (mt)’s support team. It’s very well done.

7. DNS Done Right

Using (mt)’s AccountCenter you can purchase new domains and add existing domains to your hosting account. Once they have been added you have the ability to modify host records for each domain hosted with (mt) so it’s simple to add txt records and setup Google Apps. The nicest thing I noticed with (mt)’s DNS tools is the ability to manage reverse DNS for each domain. No need to call or e-mail support to make a modification to the reverse DNS, you can now do it yourself all through their AccountCenter.

8. Recovery & Issue Management

“Server administrator heal thyself!” (mt) makes it easy to help yourself when disaster strikes. Using the AccountCenter you can revert your (dv) back it it’s original state when you first purchased it with the link of a link. You can also reset the firewall rules on your server in the event that you accidentally lock yourself out. And one of the most useful things is the ability to add additional disk space temporarily. If your server fills up you can temporarily add 1GB of disk space to the server so you can get in and fix whatever went wrong free of charge.

9. Containers

Another cool thing (mt) has is different isolated hosting containers for different technologies like Django, Ruby on Rails and MySQL. These containers are hosted on their (gs) Grid-Service which is a cloud hosting environment to help handle high traffic and storage needs. So if you wanted an isolated little database server you could setup a MySQL container for $20/month on a cloud hosted environment quickly using (mt).

10. (mt) Labs

Something that I noticed that (mt) does that other hosting companies don’t is they tell you what they are working on. (mt) Labs is where they talk about what new and exciting things they are working on and open the floor to beta testers and users for discussion. They have really taken the web 2.0 company approach to hosting and I think that is totally cool.

Media Temple is not your regular stuffy old hosting company. They seem to have an intimate understanding of their audience and as a result have developed some very nice hosting packages. The next time you are in the market for hosting be sure to check out Media Temple!

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1. 10 Reasons Why Campaign Monitor Rocks
2. 10 Reasons Why CodeIgniter Rocks

E-mail marketing apps are a dime a dozen now a days. Each one claims it has better delivery rates than the other, more pre-designed HTML templates than the other and better support. However, I found an e-mail marketing app a while back that has just differentiated itself from the rest of the pack completely. The program is called Campaign Monitor (CM) and it’s not just your typical e-mail marketing app. CM has been built with designers and developers in mind. You can completely rebrand this hosted application to make it look and act like your own application and then resell it to your customers for additional revenue… totally cool!

Below are my 10 reasons why Campaign Monitor rocks:

1. Very easy to use.

E-mail marketing can be a complex activity if you aren’t real tech savvy. Especially in today’s market with so many different e-mail clients and spam filters around. Campaign Monitor has an extremely simple user interface. They don’t clutter the screen with unnecessary icons or graphics. Most operations are in a step by step wizard format with plenty of helpful notes and explanations along the way.

2. It speaks our language.

When you really get into e-mail marketing and start looking into why messages are bouncing, etc. you start to come across terms like Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DNS records. Your general user, who just wanted to send a message to their list, doesn’t know what all that is about… and they don’t care. Campaign Monitors reports get the information across in plain terms that anyone can understand. Their bounce report lists all recipients whose messages bounced back along with the specific reason why it bounced.

3. You only pay when you send.

E-mail marketing is one of those things that I refuse to pay a monthly fee for. I don’t send enough e-mails to warrant such a fee. That’s why Campaign Monitor is so great; you only pay when you send a message. So all the list and subscriber management tools are available for free. When it’s time to send a message it’s just $5.00 for the e-mail and $0.01 per recipient. So, if you’re sending a message to 100 people the cost will be $6.00 for the message. And the price doesn’t go up for more recipients. Of course you will pay more for sending to more people, because of the penny per recipient, but it’s still just $5.00.

4. Helps you get your messages to your recipients.

Getting e-mail’s to their intended destination is not a simple process. Spammers have clogged the pipes with so much junk that poor e-mail systems are having a hard time determining what’s legit and what’s not. To help ensure your mail get’s delivered you are encouraged to look into the Sender Policy Framework and adding TXT records to your DNS so e-mail services like Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo don’t file your message as SPAM. Campaign Monitor does all the hard stuff for you by allowing you to add authenticated sending domains to your client accounts. Then CM provides you with the necessary DomainKey and Sender ID TXT records to just copy and paste into your domains DNS.

5. Not your typical affiliate or referral program.

Programs like this usually work off an affiliate or referral program. You link to or recommend the program to your clients who end up sign-ing up and you receive 15-20% of what they spend. Not a very attractive offier. Campaign Monitor, however,  actually allows you name your own price and still use their system. The deal is that you name your own price and then the client gets charged your price. At the end of every month CM does the math and sends you a Paypal transfer with your profit (minus their cut of course). CM only takes $5.00 for every message sent plus $0.01 per recipient.

6. Over 30 pre-designed HTML templates.

Campaign Monitor is a full featured e-mail marketing app in a box. All you have to do is gussy it up to look like you want and your off. They even offer 30 pre-designed HTML templates for you and your clients to use.

7. 100% Rebrandable

You know as well as I that rebrandable can mean anything from being able to change colors to being able to change the URL. With Campaign Monitor you can change pretty much anything you want. You can upload a logo for the main log-in screen, a logo for the main application interface, you can choose from a number of different color schemes, you can even set your own pricing scheme. To top it off you have the ability to change the URL of your app to anything you want. So users don’t visit http://something.campaignmontior.com. You can make the program look completely like your own.

8. A wealth of design resources.

On top of a great program, the makers of Campaign Monitor have a Resources section on their website chocked full of useful tips and tools. They have ideas on how you can offer e-mail marketing services to your clients and information on how CSS is supported in HTML e-mail design. They also have detailed explanations and resources to help your users understand permissions and what is and is not acceptable use of someones e-mail address.

9. Segmentation and custom fields.

You can have 5 different mailing lists for a single site if you want. But with Campaign Monitor you have the ability to create segments within a given list. Using custom fields you can group members of a given list into segments and then send messages to certain segments without affecting the other members of your list. This allows you to keep track of all your subscribers using just one list instead of many.

10. API Access

As if the items I have already mentioned aren’t enough, Campaign Monitor also provides it’s users with API access to their program. This allows developers like myself to integrate the program with their own apps to help streamline mailing list management and cut down on all the exporting and importing that typically needs to take place. If you offer other web based applications this is a great opportunity to upsell Campaign Monitor because you can integreate it with your apps thereby making the process seamless for your clients and that’s what it’s all about.

Those are just some of the reasons why I think Campaign Monitor rocks. Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Related posts:

1. Selling Campaign Monitor to Your Customers
2. 10 Reasons Why CodeIgniter Rocks
3. 10 Reasons Why Media Temple Rocks

1. Save time with a content management system.

A lot of non-web savvy people dismiss blogging as being too hard for them to do because they don’t have the technical knowledge. However, nowadays you don’t need any technical understanding to start blogging. There are tons of content management systems (CMS) on the market to pretty much automate the process of managing your blogs content. They pretty much do everything except write the content for you.

Those non-savvy people might be more comfortable with a hosted solution like TypePad, Squarespace or WordPress. The more web minded among you will be comfortable with installing systems like WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Textpattern, etc.

2. Keep an eye on how things are going.

It’s a cool feeling to know that perfect strangers are reading and enjoying things you have written on your blog. You can enjoy the same warm fuzzy feeling by keeping track of your sites traffic. There are a bunch of web site statistics and analytic programs available that allow you to keep track of the traffic to your site and content.

If your using a hosted content management system, odds are they provide their own stats tracking functionality. However, for those self hosted individuals a popular free tool is Google Analytics. Self hosted WordPress users can also install the WordPress.com stats plugin to use their hosted stats service for their blog. Another popular stats program which is self-hosted and costs a little money is Mint.

3. Don’t judge a website by it’s design.

Like it or not,  we all do it. Web surfers tend to judge websites based on appearances and not content. That means if they don’t like how your site looks they won’t stick around. With that said, you don’t have to be a professional graphic designer to have a blog that looks good. There are many sites and blog posts around the web that highlight CMS themes and blog templates to help spruce up your blog.

Smashing Magazine has a number of posts on top notch WordPress themes. Template Monster is a great resource for finding inexpensive designs and CMS templates that will help you improve the image of your blog. Another good resource for finding themes is Blog Flux Themes which has a collection of themes for just about all the popular CMSs.

4. Syndication is key.

Really simple syndication (RSS) is a great way to keep your loyal readers informed when you post new content. Most content management systems provide RSS feeds by default. A nice tool to use with your RSS feed is FeedBurner. This online tool lets you track RSS stats, helps you promote your feed and provides you with ways to monetize your content.

5. A picture is worth 1,000 words.

You can post as much text content as you want, but you know what they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”. There are plenty of stock image sites around the web, some provide free images like everystockphoto.com and others provide inexpensive stock photography and vector images like iStockphoto. Even if your not big on putting pictures in your blog posts, create a Flickr account and link up your image stream to your blog. That incorporates some imagery into your site and adds a social aspect to your blog as well.

This is an issue that I have been wrestling with personally. I’m not a designer and I don’t have time to look for a picture for every post I do. That’s why I love Zemanta. Zemanta is a tool I found a couple of weeks ago that makes it really easy to make your blog posts look good. It recommends links, tags and pictures to add to your post as you type it. It’s available as a web browser add-on as well as a CMS plug-in/extension.

6. Don’t let spam happen to your blog.

Ars Technica reports that 81.5% of all e-mail traffic in June was spam. It’s a sad fact, but when doing most anything on the web today you need to take spam into consideration. When blogging, it’s not e-mail spam that hurts its comment spam. When allowing your site visitors to comment on your posts your also opening the door for malicious spam bots to fill your CMS to the brim with junk (and many times dirty) spam posts.

Lucky for us there are tools like Akismet and Mollom to help protect your site. These are free hosted tools that maintain databases of spam that they compare all your comment submissions to so they identify whats spam and whats not. Although spam might not be a problem on your blog when you first start out you should keep these in your back pocket because it’s bound to happen to you sooner or later.

7. Share and share alike.

Search engines look at the popularity of your site when determining it’s rank in the listings. There are a number of factors that are used to determine popularity, but one of the best known factors is links to your site from the outside world. You want to make it easy for your visitors to share your content with others through news sites like Digg and social networks like Facebook. Two tools that make it super simple are ShareThis and AddThis. These sites allow you to put a button on your site that makes it easy for visitors to add links to your site from their social profiles, link managers and even e-mail links to friends.

In addition to making it easy for users to link to your content, you should give some thought to adding a links page to your blog or at least starting a blogroll. Someplace where you can link to sites you like and share some link traffic with your friends. WordPress has a nice links manager built right into their CMS but other popular online link managers are del.icio.us and Ma.gnolia. If you have profiles with an online bookmark app you can probably integrate it into your site via RSS or a plug-in/extension.

8. Get social!

Blogging is a personal thing. You are typically sharing your unique insight about certain topics or issues. If people are going to care about what you say they need to get to know you. Create profiles on social networks like Facebook, Last.fm, LinkedIn, etc. Link to your profiles and start letting people get to know you. The more they know about you the more they will respect your opinion and look forward to your next blog post.

9. Money makes the web go round.

Displaying advertisements on your blog is usually a divided issue among seasoned bloggers. Even if your just promoting your own projects or are looking to make enough money to cover your hosting costs, I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. There are plenty of add tools out there to help you make a little money, the most popular of which is Google AdSense. You can also use tools like adroll which are a little more community oriented. Once your blog starts getting some traffic you can go with a service like Text Link Ads or come up with a pricing scheme yourself and go it alone.

10. What are you doing right now?

Micro-blogging is a phenomenon that is currently sweeping the nation. The idea is to create a space where you post short quick updates about what you are currently doing or how you currently feel. Twitter and Pownce are two popular apps that allow you to micro-blog from just about anywhere. Micro-blogs are nice because they cover that social factor we talked about in #7 above but they are also useful for other things. If you don’t want to update people about what your doing then use it as a link list or a mini-news feed. These apps can typically be integrated into your blogs content management system via a plug-in or extension thereby extending the functionality of your site.

If your a seasoned blogger, let us know what tools you use by posting a comment.

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1. New Website

My framework of choice is CodeIgniter (CI) and below are my 10 reasons why CI rocks:

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1. Building Applications using CodeIgniter (Part 2) – Configuration
2. 10 Reasons Why Campaign Monitor Rocks
3. 10 Reasons Why Media Temple Rocks