The best hosting plan after a comparative of days.
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

This is a translation of one of the outstanding articles of my blog in Spanish, available here: www.programacion.com. 
 
I have had to be looking for during days a good and economic hosting plan for a project in which a friend and I needed lot of space and transfer mainly. 
At the end, we have decided to buy it at powweb.com. It is much better than others that we have seen, it is more than 10 times better than other sites. 
 
The most complex thing is the difficulty of comparing. Each place has a hosting plan. But all õf them have the one that costs approximately 8$/month, that is for the one that guided me. 
 
Other hosting plans that I was looking were: godaddy.com, mexcompany.com, lleida.net, isphost.org, hostalia.com, velcom.com, hostingloft.com, xartra.com, lavackhosting.com, etc. And most offers hosting plans from 2$ month, but then they charge you separated the domain name to price of gold, they don't give you webmaster tools neither databases... and the normal plans are more expensive. 
 
This is what you get with powweb:  
20Gb disk space, 400Gb monthly transfer, an auto installer with everything:

Content Management Weblogs Image Galleries Wikis

Discussion Boards Guestbooks Groupware E-Commerce

Chat WebMail RSS Small Scripts

	1. Best Value For Your Money Our One Plan hosting package offers EVERYTHING you need for only $7.77 per month! Other Web hosting companies charge up to five times more. We offer loads of disk space, bandwidth and features at an incredible discount.
	2. A Company You Can Trust PowWeb has been providing award-winning hosting since 1999. We operate out of a real office with real staff monitoring our servers and network 24/7. PowWeb is a member of the Better Business Bureau and has agreed to the Bureau's membership standards, which include a commitment to ethical business practices.
	3. Fast Network/Server Backbone Connection Our servers connect to the Internet at lightning speed! Our backbone includes high speed OC12/48 connection for efficient and reliable high-speed performance. We have teamed up with a major connection tier 1 provider to bring you one of the most reliable services on the Internet today.
	4. Load-Balanced Servers Take advantage of the latest technology. Thanks to our "load balanced" servers, your Web site will experience virtually no downtime during server reboots, server maintenance and server hardware failure.
	5. We Use Our Own Hardware & Proprietary Software PowWeb uses its own state-of-the-art hardware. All of our servers are company-owned and operated. Most Web hosting companies are just resellers relying on other people's equipment. We pride ourselves in using proprietary software. Our whole infrastructure was built from the ground up by our team of experienced developers. This includes server configurations, billing software, helpdesk, WebMail, Site Manager, and OPS.
	6. Large Online Community We operate one of the largest communities on the Internet, allowing clients to communicate freely and openly with each other. Join the family -- it's a great place for web designers and novices alike to exchange ideas, code, advice or just hang out!
	7. Build, Grow & Profit! In addition to providing you with quality hosting at an affordable price, we also provide you with the necessary tools to grow and profit from your Web site, this includes our Resource Center, FreeLance Marketplace and our Community Forum.
	8. Friendly Technical Support Your Web site(s) will be in good hands with PowWeb. We provide 24/7 phone, e-mail and support.
	9. Upgrades Our development team is continuously upgrading our systems with the latest technology, creating new tools and features to make your Web presence as easily maintainable and reliable as possible.
	10. Satisfaction Guarantee Keeping our customers happy is our main priority. If for ANY reason, we do not measure up to your expectations, take advantage of our 30-day money back guarantee.

  
 
Incorporated shopping cart OsCommerce 
SSL - Shared Secure Certificate 
It accepts payment with PayPal 
 
They gift you the domain name (yourname.com) 
 
The price is 7.77$ a month for everything. 
 
If somebody is thinking of buying the hosting in powweb, I ask you that you do with this link: 
http://www.powweb.com/join/index.bml?AffID=557694 
 
Since I have become affiliated and they pay me for people that I recommend. 
 
Although if they didn't pay me for it, I would also recommend it. If you find some better you can write it in comments. 
 
I use to received some promotions from Powweb that improve even more the offer that they had. 
To the conditions of 300Gb of monthly traffic + domain name free + configuration free, databases, support 24 hours, etc. Now the gives also 6 additional months when buying the plan in an annual way. So you pay 88$ and you have 18 months. And if you use the discount coupon "take5" when you sign in, you'll get 5$ off.
 
I also take advantage to say that we are very happy with the hosting. We have had some problem with our FTP client configuration and almost immediately they have solved the doubts. You will have also a web interface to configure the whole configurable. Statistics with all detail, blogs, virtual store compatible with paypal payments, mysql databases... 
 
Here you have our page hosted in powweb: 
http://www.thehouseofblogs.com

3:00 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Writing offline
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

Today is Saturday, August 12, at 12:38.
Third day without Internet at home. Second day late in the delivery of my project for this reason.

What can I do while the Internet provider "tries" to solve their problem? It is not bad idea to write something in the notepad to publish it later in my new blog.

I have not still made a presentation on me, so there I go.

My profession is computers from the year 98. In that year the specialization inside the computer science didn't exist. For that that if you worked with computers it was assumed that you knew how to manage any thing that had keys. Before, the computer specialist, was the tecno-addicted and he also showed off of it.

Now it has changed something, if somebody wonders how to take a picture with his mobile, you can teach him your old mobile with w/b display and not for that you will be a worse computer specialist. Any person, of any different profession, knows what a MP3 is, to use Internet, what it means bluetooth, DVD, GPS... So, if now they already know what they thought that you knew when they didn't know it, but they continue without knowing what your is day by day in the work, you computer specialist profession becomes something even more mysterious.

If you are a technology consultant, for sure these questions are familiar for you: what is it exactly you do in your work? could not that that you write in that green screen, make it with windows? The computer science should be a work without stress. If you work with computers, you should like computers a lot.

And what is what a computer specialist thinks? (correct me if I make a mistake): I won't be devoted to this for my whole life.

If somebody wonders what you want to make with your life you won't know how to give an exact answer. You only know that you don't want to be 50 and to continue equally.
So the important thing is to have a plan.

Which is my plan?
Regrettably, my only gift are the computer science and the music.
It is too late to be devoted to the music. The idea of stealing a bank throught the Internet is very worn away...
To make a tool, as Google that changes the world? Yes, why not? Internet is "beginning", people are more and more dependent of the technology and the new inventions are welcomed very quickly.
I made this decision in the summer of the 2004.
I began to work as freelance because I thought that this way I would have more time to work in my ideas.
When realizing that this formula would not work, I looked for a work in a consultant company and in my free time it developed my ideas. Beautiful projects ended and with certain success: as thehouseofblogs.com, programacion-tdt.com and some internet site more. They have not changed the world, but neither it has been lost time. All that learned until this moment is reutilizable.

When beginning the year 2006 I decided that I needed another change in my life. I don't know how much I have left on life, neither I can wait to become old to look to behind and to see I have not even tried to get my dream.

I left my work in HP Spain and I returned to New York some days to only get lost, to disconnect of everything and to breathe a different air.

When returning to Madrid I began to work in a Dutch consultant that promised stability, tranquility and a future. Something very strange it happened there. Several partners left that job in the few months that I worked there. Most of the days didn't have anything to do. The work rhythm was too relaxed. And that atmosphere contaminated my daily life for such an active person and with as much initiative as me. All my ideas were murdered with answers like: that is not Microsoft, only hackers use Linux, don't invest time in solving that possible problem, it is not a problem yet.
During the whole day I only had energy to go to the work to read the newspaper and to drink coffee.

Three months later I was fired. The reasons: I was very expensive. Some days later I discovered, thanks to the Internet, that my former-company was in crash, a Dutch nester of business had bought it to reborn it with the intention of selling it after it had more value.
And there are concrete dates in which they need to have people in personnel with certain profiles only to renew some note titles, as Microsoft Gold Partner. For example, people like me. After renovating these titles, the department of "human" resources has completed its objective, for what those resources stop to be necessary.

I took a very enriching experience from this job; the reason of being of the company.
In a meeting with a CEO from Holland, one of the Spanish directive was trying to do as English translator to Spanish and viceversa. This directive humility was not its best, neither neither its English. Minutes later of trying to do as translator, he interrupted to say: I will stop of translating because everybody who enters to work in XXX must speak English.
Before he said that, I only felt pain for their inability demonstrated during their translation. Feeling of pain that changed when he made that comment in pejorative tone toward all, only to try to defend of the amazed looks from the rest of people when seeing him speaking English.   
The strong of this company was to make see what they are not. The same as this directive wanted to be a good translator, they tried to transform a waiter into expert programmer of .NET, or an expert in Oracle into an expert in the new version of a product of Microsoft, from one day to another.  
 
As the Monty Phyton says: "always look at the bright side of life". And in this new completely unexpected change there could be more positive things than negative.

I had 2 options. To return to New York to meet with a Danish friend who was working there, or to look for a new work in Madrid and to reconsider "my target".
In the first option there was too much risk.

So I stayed in Madrid, I found a work that really fits enough with what I have been looking for always, and I restated my objective toward the current state.

What is on? All that made previously has not been lost time as I said before. I have learned new technologies, new needs and I have also learned something of what should not be made, for not repeating it.

The chance crossed with my ideas in my road to make true the sentence "I won't be devoted a lifetime to this". My friend Faustino put me in contact with a company with a very concrete need. The need of this company today, will be the need in next months of many European companies, whose business is the same.

This company has trusted me to give them a solution to its need in next months. The task is compatible with my current work since can carry it out at home and they pay well. And once concluded, in an imminent way, a new product will exist, cheap and easy to use and to implement, with thousands of potential clients.

By the way, it is based on multi-platform systems and other independent of Microsoft technologies. For sure there are people who wouldn't like it. But my client loves it.

What does it prevent me now to continue? Internet doesn't work!

10:31 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Introducing me
Current mood: sleepy
Category: Blogging

This is my first post in my new blog. If you can speak Spanish, you can read my old one hosted in Spain, in programacion.com.

I live in Madrid - SP, it is not neither the best neither the worst place in the world to live. Although according my opinion, it is below the middle. 
The topics that more interest to me, and of those that I'll go writing here, are the trips, the different cultures, technology, the health and the way of the happiness. 
I say sorry in advance for the grammatical errors that for sure I will make. English is not my mather tongue.
My best wishes for you.

3:42 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment