Computer services for home and small business in and around Sheffield

PC Happy Blog

Finding a web hosting company – 6 Top Tips

I made a brief post a few days ago about looking for a new web host, so far I am very happy with my new host. I thought I would add a few more tips I have found when looking for a new web hosting company. If you use your website for business or to make money in anyway, finding the right host for your website is vitally important. Here are my tips -

  • Before you sign up make sure you ask them a few questions by email, if they can’t respond quickly to a possible sale they are likely not going to be great responding to support requests either. This doesn’t prove you will get good support, but in a lot of cases if you don’t get a decent, relatively quick response to your email you can expect a worse response if you ever need support.
  • Ask a few technical questions, the pre-sales people might not know the answers but you should get a decent answer from the support department forwarded to you. If the answer doesn’t makes sense or leaves you unsure you might want to rule that host out
  • Write a list of all your requirements and make sure they are fully met. If there are any points you can’t see on their website ask in an email to check. If there are any scripts your website uses make sure these will work with the new host, and make sure they are allowed.
  • Ask for the address of the server you will be hosted on if using shared hosting. You can then test what the Pings are like and see how quickly you can download from them. Every host should have a test file you can download.
  • Check for any uptime guarantees and make sure if they fail to meet them they actually do something, and not just apologise. Their terms of service should cover what they will do if they fail to meet the uptime guarantee.
  • Obviously you should check other things such as the bandwidth and storage limitation, if these don’t meet your needs you can rule them out straight away.

These are just a few basic tips, there are lots more useful checks you make do to try find the right host. If you have any of your own tips, feel free to leave a comment below.

Posted in Internet by Marc on July 26, 2010

Web Hosting

I’ve just been looking for a new host for a few sites and hopefully found a good one. I always worry when moving hosts as no matter how good the reviews you never know if they will be good for you. I would never sign a customer up to a host until I had used them myself for at least a year.

The whole area of hosting is very difficult to follow, there must be thousands that come and go every month. People see it as an easy business to get into as you can buy a reseller package and be up and running within a few minutes. That doesn’t make you a good web host though.

The best tip anyone every gave me many years ago was to avoid anyone offering unlimited space or bandwidth. Nothing is unlimited and if they are selling their service as such they are usually overselling and often putting far too many accounts on their servers.

Posted in Internet by Marc on July 22, 2010

Computer Problem?

If you are thinking "how can I fix my computer", or "how can I fix my laptop" you are in the right place. Give me call and I can repair your computer problem. There are lots of possible causes when you have computer problems, some of them can be fairly complicated to fix. Lots of problems are caused by viruses, adware, trojans, spyware or malware and once you get infected it can be really difficult to get rid of the problem and fix your computer. Now you have found PC Happy you can get your problem fixed cheaply and efficiently. This is because that is what PC Happy does best, reliable services for a cheap price. It doesn't matter if you have a laptop or desktop computer the problems are usually pretty much the same. Now you have found PC Happy the solution isn't too far away. Maybe your problem is with your broadband connection or you wireless network. These are often fairly straightforward to fix. Your PC can be fixed either onsite or it can be collected and returned for no extra charge. No matter which service you choose you can be safe in the knowledge that there is a no fix no fee policy with PC Happy.

Sometimes you don't have a problem with your computer and you just need help with the set-up, maybe you can't set-up your email or you can't set-up a network. These are problems I can help you with. Another area that can cause lots of problems is security, Internet security is very important and if your Internet security isn't working correctly you should get it fixed as soon as possible. If you are getting lots of popups while you are on the Internet this can be an indication of a problem. Popups aren't just annoying they are often a sign of a virus, malware, adware of similar. Don't just leave it, if you have a popup problem you should get it fixed as soon as possible.