When you run a business that is primarily online, it’s obvious enough that your website should be utterly fantastic. It is, after all, the face of your company and it will largely be how most of your customers will interact with you. If you an e-commerce store, for example, you’ll want to make sure that the shopping cart software is up to snuff and that the checkout process is easy enough that even grandma can complete the purchase.

For owners of brick-and-mortar stores, however, it is not uncommon to see a website thrown together by an amateur designer over a weekend and then it is completely forgotten about by the business owner. This is not how you should be running your company website. In this day and age, it doesn’t matter if you are just a greasy spoon diner on the corner or a high-end boutique hotel in Manhattan. It is very important to have a well-designed and comprehensive website for both existing and prospective customers.

A lot of people do their research online before completing a purchase or going out for any kind of excursion. Vacation planning is a very big deal and people want to be able to gather as much information as possible before heading out on their trips. If the destination is a fair distance away from home, it may prove to be very expensive calling each location for information. It’s much, much more affordable to do the research online. It’s also cheaper for the company, because you don’t need to hire as many employees to answer the phones.

At the very minimum, your company website should be well-designed, prominently feature your branding, and contain all the pertinent information that a potential customer would want to know. Among the pages that you will want to include are an about page, a contact page, a list of services and products (as well as pricing), map and directions, FAQ, and if it is appropriate for your kind of business, an extensive photo gallery. Pictures and videos are particularly useful for companies that cater to tourists.

Don’t let your company website be an afterthought that goes without updates for months at a time. A good website can mean all the difference.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to be on the bleeding edge of technology, then this new is for you. While the update doesn’t provide nearly as much of an overhaul as we experienced with the arrival of WordPress 2.5, the latest beta version of our favorite blog platform has been released and it comes with a couple of nifty new features that you may enjoy.

WordPress 2.6 Beta 1 is, as you can tell, still under beta. As such, don’t be surprised if you come across a few strange quirks or glitches during installation and while running it. For this reason, you may not want to upgrade your primary blog to WordPress 2.6 Beta 1 just yet. Try running on it on a secondary domain if you’d like to get a glimpse into what the WordPress team has in store for you when the real deal WP 2.6 hits primetime.

There are a series of differences between the WordPress 2.5.x build and the WordPress 2.6 build. Among the most notable is the addition of Post Revisioning. You get a log of all the changes made to a post. This way, you don’t accidentally lose a paragraph by having multiple authors work on the same post or lose a critical sentence because you’re editing the post in multiple windows. It’s also quite notable that support for Google Gears has been added as well.

A full rundown of the changes can be found in this post and you can click here to download WordPress 2.6 Beta 1.

Last week we asked how many computers or laptops do you have in your house and 68% said you have 3 or more. This weeks question is…

Starting and running a business can be a very complicated process. There are just so many things that you have to take into consideration and when the bills start piling up, you may feel inclined to make a few quick bucks to alleviate that burden. I can understand the desire to do so, but it is in your best interest to keep true to your vision throughout the process.

You may come across an opportunity where you may be able to over-charge or possibly deceive a potential customer. Greed being what it is, you may feel inclined to take advantage of this opportunity. This is the kind of scenario that pops up with hosts that lie. DON’T FALL INTO THIS TRAP!

Honesty is oftentimes the best policy. In the short term, lies and underhanded tactics may be able to land an extra sale or two, but these indiscretions can come back with a vengeance and ultimately hurt you in the long run. It is important that you keep your long term goals and long term business plan in mind when you are making any business decisions. Be strategic, be crafty, and be innovative, but never sacrifice your integrity in the process.

Only then can your business succeed in the long run.

Security is not just important when you are doing financial transactions – an insecure Web site can be used by others for malicious purposes to launch attacks against other Web sites. There are a few must-knows for anyone who ventures out into the world of PHP Web development. In this webinar, Zend’s Kevin Schroeder will focus on the absolute necessities when doing secure Web development.

When is the event happening?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM

Where is it happening?
Online. Ensure you have all the plugins to view the event prior to attending.

Registration
To register for this free event you need to RSVP here.

There are more and more web hosting companies that are going the way of over selling there services. You will see many places that offer lots of space and bandwidth for a very small fee. I have even started seeing once reputable hosts offering unlimited space and bandwidth.

These hosts are lying.

Plain and simple these hosts are lying in their marketing and then covering up that lie by limiting your usage of that account in their Terms of Service.

So what?

There are a few reasons you should care…

1. People looking for a large volume of space and bandwidth usually plan to use it.
2. If they are going to lie to you to get you as a customer what does that say about their ethics?
3. If you ever try to use that space or bandwidth your account will be cancelled.

How do I know my host is overselling?

This is easier then you think. Most hard drives today come with 500 GB of space. If you want to see if your host is overselling simply ask them how many users are on the shared server.

So for example, if your host is providing you with 300 GB of space and they have 300 or so users on that server they would need to have hard drive that would hold 90000 GB or 88 TB. You can not find a hard drive with that much space on it at this time. You can put together lots of little hard drives to make that much space but they would loose money hand over fist if they did so.

What is overselling and why should I hate it?

When I was younger I went to go see Batman at the movie theater. The movie owner not only sold every ticket but sold more the the seats that were available in the theater. My friends and I showed up 15 minutes before the movie started and upon entering the theater had no where to sit. This angered me, I had paid for something that I was not able to receive. Why did it anger me? I had built up an excitement that I was going to see the Batman movie and was seriously let down when I was not able to see it.

A similar story happened when I was traveling on a business trip. The plane I was on was overbooked. Again they had sold more seats then the plane had. I was mad having to wait 3 hours for the next plane when this happened.

Both of these are example of overselling that I have seen outside of the hosting industry.

Does BlueFur oversell?

No. We have all had bad experiences with overselling and we will not be overselling our servers. That model is a recipe for short term success and long term failure. We value our customers and communiy built around our services.

Think it is okay to oversell hosting? Explain in the comments.