It is speculated that IE6 still has a small hold globally, but in the United States the archaic browser version has dropped below two percent.

According to W3Schools.com and W3Counter.com, who report on the browser usage, in December 2011 the usage was only 1.2% and 1.43% respectively.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp

http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

Tony Bradley of PCWorld shared some of the reasons you might want to consider abandoning IE6:

Support

Microsoft no longer supports or updates IE6. More importantly, though, many websites –including Facebook — have dropped support for the geriatric browser. Sites would rather just reject the handful of stubborn IE6 users than continue to try and develop sites that are compatible with it.

Security

Internet Explorer 6 was developed before virtually any of the malware attacks that plague the Internet today even existed. Modern browsers can detect and identify potential phishing scam sites, and have mechanisms to prevent drive-by downloads. IE6 is simply not designed to protect you while you surf the way current browsers do.

Efficiency

The current generation of browsers is faster than the decade-old IE6. They have speedier JavaScript engines, and they are optimized to render todays websites more quickly. They also have things like tabbed browsing, the ability to remember the tabs you have open, and the ability to drag tabs off into separate windows – all features that help you streamline the Web surfing experience.

Microsoft announced plans to start silently updating Internet Explorer to the current version — similar to the way rival browsers like Chrome and Firefox automatically push out new versions. However, there are enough caveats and loopholes available that it will still be possible to stick with IE6.

The announcement of abandoning of IE6 indicates that designers and developers will no longer consider the compatibility of the browser when designing and developing websites, resulting in IE6 users isolated.

JHNet Web Development adhere to international standards and use the latest technology when designing and developing website for clients, we urge you to embrace change by upgrading to latest browser or any release in the last two or three years if you still using IE6, to avoid isolation, so you enjoy better browsing experience across the web.

For more information on web development, visit our website www.jhnet.co.za alternatively email us at info@jhnet.co.za

Blog inspired by Wikipedia, W3Schools, W3Counter and PCWorld

According to Bright Hub, below are 10 best web management practice tips to keep your website healthy:

1. Design Scalable Pages

For pages that will contain rich material in the future, try to design those pages in a way that allows them to expand in the vertical direction. Also, ensure you do not design your pages in a way that makes it impossible for them to expand.

2. Save All Your Images in a Sub-folder

It is a design best practice and eases website maintenance, if you put all your images in a sub-folder. As a rule, this sub-folder is called images and it is located in the root directory.

3. Use Images with the Same Height and Width

If you have a webpage with many images, make sure all the new images you add have the same height and width as the others. Sometimes such a unification might not be possible but since it makes a webpage neat, go for it whenever you can.

4. Create a Template for Designing Web Pages

The template has all your website elements (header, footer, menus, etc.) except the content. A template is very useful when you need to add new web pages because it speeds up your work drastically and gives your site a consistent look and feel.

5. Backup Your Pages

If you frequently update a webpage, make sure you create a backup each time before updating it. This way, you’ll have the original files if there is an error during the update process.

6. Maintain a List of All the Changes to the Web Pages

Keep a track of what and why you changed and the date when you did it. This way if something doesn’t look right or needs to be reverted to the previous version, you will know what needs to be changed and where.

7. Ensure Your Site Remains Online 24 Hours a Day

A website monitoring company can provide you a monitoring service and they can issue you a report with information on how much downtime or other difficulty your site has experienced in the last few days or weeks. If the downtime is greater than 2 or 3 percent of uptime, you should contact your website hosting company to find out why. If they cannot correct the problem, you may consider changing the host.

8. Check for Broken Links

Visitors will turn away from your site quickly if links on the site are broken or if they produce error messages. When you list your website on the web you become responsible for making sure its links work by correcting them.

9. Optimize Your Webpages for Speed

Graphic optimization is key for quick webpage downloading. There are graphics program available that optimize the quality and size of JPEGs, GIFs and other formats to varying degree. Images can be reduced in size and it is amazing to note how much this improves the speed of webpages.

10. Check Your HTML/CSS Code for Errors

The errors in HTML and CSS code may harm your website ranking so you must be attentive with your coding issues. Common mistakes like improper order of header and meta tags are not huge but can lead to big problems.

Conclusion

JHNet Web Development adhere to best web management practices, we understand that the well-being of your website depends on constant updates using the best practice. At JHNet we will maintain your website for you, allowing you to focus on what you do best.  We support and maintain a variety of websites from financial and e-Commerce websites to small personal websites. No website is too big or too small for us to maintain.

We pride ourselves with impressive turnaround times, and we only use best practices and industry standards when maintaining websites. For more information on how we can help you with managing your website, please visit our website www.jhnet.co.za (http://www.jhnet.co.za/contact)

If you have a personal or business website, it is important to make sure your website is visible to the public and SEO help your website rank higher when search engine users search topics that are relevant to your website. According to WINWEB Business Blog, the following 5 SEO tips will help maximize the visibility of your website:

1. Before you conduct any SEO activity, you need to choose your search keywords wisely. You can check the popularity of relevant keywords at many websites for free, including Google Insights. A search term with a high popularity and low competitiveness is ideal.
2. The domain name of your website should include a search keyword. For example, if you have a designer shoes website, having a url such as designershoes.co.uk would increase visibility. The keyword or words should also be included in the ‘meta tag’ in the coding of the home page.
3. Ensure that you have plenty of links coming into your website, from online press releases, partner sites, emails, blogs, social networking sites and more. To maximize the effect of your SEO, they should be high quality and come through to as many different pages on your website as possible, where relevant, not just the home page.
4. Add good quality keyword-rich content onto your website, including articles, blog entries and general page content. If you use them too much in the text, the search engines become suspicious and will lower the rank of your page; around 2-8% usage in the website text is thought to be ideal for SEO.
5. Use relevant SEO keywords in the navigation of your pages. This means that your main keywords are in prime location on every page of your website, maximising your search engine ranking.

At JHNet Web Development, we value the importance of SEO, because we understand that is the foundation in driving traffic to any website.
JHNet have over the past 10 years been honing our skills and have developed best practice and legitimate coding techniques to make sure the site is developed and created with the best types of elements to ensure your site has the best chance of growing organically. These techniques allow for all our clients to benefit from the site continuing to grow in relevance and importance.

This sets us apart from most SEO only companies that don’t have the technical skill or understanding to take advantage of these elements and therefore don’t offer the level JHNet can.

We offer all forms of SEO services helping you increase search engine traffic and achieve the result you need in order to promote your website on search engines, allowing you to grow your business. We only use the best techniques that are accepted by all search engines, assuring your site will not be penalised or disregarded.

For more info on our SEO services, contact us today at info@jhnet.co.za or visit our website at www.jhnet.co.za/

The release in March 2004 by Macromedia included an SDK, an integrated development environment (IDE), and a Java EE integration application known as Flex Data Services. Since Adobe purchased Macromedia in 2005, subsequent releases of Flex no longer require a license for Flex Data Services, which has become a separate product rebranded as LiveCycle Data Services. An alternative to Adobe LiveCycle Data Services is BlazeDS, an open-source project that started with code contributed in 2007 by Adobe.

In February 2008, Adobe released the Flex 3 SDK under the open source Mozilla Public License and so Flex applications can be developed using any standard IDE, for example Eclipse.

On November 17th, 2011, Adobe officially open-sourced Flex and donated it to the Apache Software Foundation. This move comes after Adobe Product Managers announced that the company will be committing to HTML 5 and that they have submitted the code for its Flash-based Flex framework to the Apache Software Foundation. The news has stunned Flex Developers as they feel that Adobe is abandoning Flex and flash completely and it also hit hard companies that had invested millions of rands in flex in their company enterprise applications.

Adobe has assured its continued support for Flex along with its underlying flash technology. Adobe also suggested that web application developers in the future would be using HTML5 rather than Flash.

Now the question one would ask is, what does it mean when Flex SDK is now open source, let’s us explore the pros and cons of open source:

Pros:

• Open source is a good way for business to achieve greater penetration of the market
• Companies that offer open source software are able to establish an industry standard and, thus, gain competitive advantage
• It has also helped build developer loyalty as developers feel empowered and have a sense of ownership of the end product
• Moreover less costs of marketing and logistical services are needed for OSS
• The OSS development approach has helped produce reliable, high quality software quickly and inexpensively

Cons:

• In terms of security, open source may allow hackers to know about the weaknesses or loopholes of the software more easily than closed-source software
• Free software can be developed in accord with purely technical requirements. It does not require thinking about commercial pressure that often degrades the quality of the software
• It is also difficult to design a commercially sound business model around the open source paradigm
• It is sometimes said that the open source development process may not be well defined and the stages in the development process, such as system testing and documentation may be ignored.

Conclusion:

Adobe issued a statement to reassure Flex developers, it’s hard to miss the use of the past participle in reference to Flex, which doesn’t bode well for developers looking to the future. It’s also hard to miss the reiterated commitment to HTML5. “In time,” says Adobe, “we believe HTML5 could support the majority of use cases where Flex is used today.” The company puts the timeframe for most applications in the three- to five-year range. In other words, Adobe believes Flex is only a good bet for the immediate future, developers interested in building something with more long term viability would do well to consider the web and HTML5.

At JHNet we always strive ourselves on keeping up with new technology. We have found in the past that there is definitely a space for open source solutions but the clients must be made aware of the pros and cons of using a specific solution ahead of time.

Sometimes open source is a great choice but in a lot of instances we have seen clients come to us for a custom solution because a clients business and specific requirements are unique to their own entity and an out the box open source solution just won’t be able to get them the results that they need or require.

If you are evaluating an open source solution vs a custom developed requirement and would like some assistance, please feel free to contact us + 27 11 234 6165 or view more on our services. http://www.jhnet.co.za/services/flash-to-html/

Look out for new articles coming soon regarding HTML 5 – is it a perfect solution and silver bullet, as well as, Is there ever going to be Flash on mobiles – what does Adobe say.

Article is inspired by:

Adobe Puts Flex Out to Open Source Pasture by Scoot Gilbertson

Adobe Flex SDK bombshell STUNS developers by Tim Anderson

wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flex

Google+ has been top secret for quite a while now. But Google has finally drawn back the curtains on this project, not all the way, but just enough to get the lips flapping.

A brief history

This is not Google’s first attempt at invading this ever growing market. Previous assaults include the content-sharing services Wave and Buzz. But none of these proved to be very successful.

Google’s idea with this project is to “bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software”. They carry on to say, “We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests”. So that’s Google+ in a nutshell.

First pieces of the project

Google has given us a glimpse of the project by providing an overview of five ways that users will be able to connect with their peers. These are called, Circles, Sparks, Hangouts, Instant Upload and Huddle. Let’s take a closer look at each one:

The breakdown

Circles

Circles is an innovative new way of grouping your friends list. So far it’s definitely our favourite part of this project. The idea is to imitate the way we share information with the people we know in real life. Things you share with your closest friends are very different from what you share with your boss or work colleagues. Circles allows you to categorise the people you want to connect, making it easier to express yourself and share precisely with the right people.

Sparks

Sparks is a search engine with a couple of add-ons. You use it to do a search on any topic and add it as an interest. Sparks then delivers a feed of content relevant to your interests. This way you will always have something to watch or talk about.

Hangouts

We often bump into friends while going about our daily business. We find out how they are, exchange niceties and so on. With Hangouts, you can do exactly that, just online. It is an onscreen gathering where anyone can join in when they’re free, and have a quick chat with their friends.

Instant Upload

Instant upload will attempt to take the hassle of getting photos off your phone and onto the internet. With your permission, Google+ will save your photos, while you’re busy taking them, into a private collection in the cloud. So now they will be available on all of your devices for editing or sharing.

Huddle

Finally, there’s Huddle. It provides a platform for you and your gang to make plans about what you are going to do this Saturday night. No more waiting for replies on sms’ or leaving urgent voicemails. With huddle, anyone who is in on the chat, knows what’s going on and all confusion about what the plan is, is sidestepped.

Conclusion

A tour on Google+ is available here and it is highly recommended that you take the time to go through it.

Google+ looks extremely promising. Will it be a Facebook killer? It’s hard to say. Facebook has a large steady following. But so did Myspace.

The Internet is an ever-changing, ever-evolving entity. What’s hip and happening today, is old news tomorrow. Only time will tell whether Google+ has royal blood, or whether it is just another failed attempt at dethroning Facebook.

Personally, I’d put my money on Google anyday.

Let us begin with the pros. We have highlighted a few points that we believe to be most beneficial to end users (and of course, we web developers):

• IE 9 incorporates some impressive features, such as plugging directly into your graphics processor, to deal with some of the resource-hogging tasks such as rendering the page and rich graphics. This results in much faster performance.
• The IE9 video engine uses far less resources to play (especially HD) videos
• Text will also be animated more smoothly, offering better sub-pixel positioning.
• IE9 also presents improved printing capabilities. Prints will no longer differ from the actual web content and even supports opacity effects on images.
• For developers IE9 supports HTML5, CCS3 and has improved greatly in speed in adherence to web standards.
• Improved developer tools

We did, however, find a few negatives regarding the new browser:

• The biggest gripe for most potential users will be that IE9 is not supported on Windows XP. While there are still many users running Windows XP, we feel this point was a little neglected.
• Tabs from your previous session cannot be reopened when the browser is closed.
• Downloads no longer have separate buttons on the taskbar, but are grouped collectively into a single download manager button.
• The interface is less customisable.

It is reported that on the release day IE9 was downloaded 2.35 million times in only 24 hours. This is fantastic news for Microsoft; however, the question remains…

Why does Microsoft not try and win users on older versions of IE, in the same manner FireFox prompts users when an update is available? Is market share the only concern, or do they consider a richer user experience? For developers this will be grand, as we will need fewer hacks for cross-browser compatibility, and the later versions will allow users a more enjoyable internet experience.

Our conclusion is as follows:

Microsoft claims that IE9 is the best browser available for Windows, as they developed it specifically for Windows utilising their in-depth knowledge of the operating system. This may be so when one reviews the new features that are implemented, and in comparison to its predecessor, IE8.

Nevertheless, we believe that browsers are like cars. There is a model and colour to suit every individual’s preference.

Maybe you’re that person who superfluously announces your every move on Twitter, every fifteen minutes. Or perhaps you prefer to update your Facebook status with life changing and profound declarations, in the hope that people will perceive you as deep and mysterious – and not judge you on your profile picture. Maybe you’re the CEO of an up-and-coming company and you use LinkedIn to connect with other like-minded individuals and to promote your business.

Whichever corner you’re in, there is a social network out there for you.

But why choose only one platform through which you can send your valuable thoughts into the world? Perhaps you, like us, are already the proud owner of a Facebook, Twitter AND LinkedIn account. Perhaps you, like us, understand that each Social Network caters for a different breed of user, and as a business it is imperative that you reach as many people as possible. Perhaps you, like us, are a Faceblinktwit.

After a while, having to update each profile separately can become a tedious and time-consuming exercise. Open browser, go to social networking website, log in, and update status. Go to next website, login, update status, go to next website…repeat as many times as necessary.

But hold your horses! The messenger has arrived, and the news is good.

Linking your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts

On November 9th 2009, the big guns at Twitter and LinkedIn announced a new partnership between the two Internet giants. According to Biz Stone and Reid Hoffman, long-time acquaintances and founders of Twitter and LinkedIn respectively, connecting your accounts will help amplify your messages to your followers. Your accounts will work together, “Like peanut butter and chocolate”. To do this, simply follow these steps:

• Open your LinkedIn profile
• Click on the small Twitter icon beneath your Networking Activity box
• Allow LinkedIn access to your Twitter account

And that’s it. You’ll be able to set it up so that either all of your tweets get shared on LinkedIn, or just the ones that contain the #in or #li hashtags. For example, if you update your Twitter with the following: “I am not allowed to eat wheat, #in”, your LinkedIn will also be updated. As mentioned earlier, just below your Network Activity box there is a Twitter icon which can be ticked or unticked, and this will then in turn update your Twitter account with your LinkedIn status. Pretty nifty, eh? But wait, there’s more…

Connecting your Twitter and Facebook accounts

Unfortunately, there is no such partnership between Facebook and Twitter, and you’ll have to rely on a third-party Facebook application called “Selective Tweet Status”, to experience the same awesomeness that you’ll get from your linked Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

Start by searching for the application on Facebook . Once it’s page is open before you, click on the “Go to app” button on the left. Now enter your Twitter username when prompted to do so. And you’re done. Now every time you want to update your Facebook with your Twitter status, just make sure it contains the #fb hashtag.

So, is this level of connectivity beneficial? Is it actually worth it?

For the Average Joe – not so much. I personally don’t see how reading about Roxzanne’s take on the risks of love across three different social platforms, can possibly enrich my life.

But if you are the owner of a company, or in any way responsible for the growth of a business, then this could very well be just what you need. People are naturally drawn towards activity, and keeping your various Social Media profiles updated keeps the crowd interested. The reality is that media consumption has moved online and according to Dan Greenberg, an entrepreneur on Forbes.com, the web has evolved from a network of sites to a network of people. Reaching these people is just becoming easier and easier and if you’re serious about expanding your business venture, you have to keep with the times.

And who knows what else the partnership between Twitter and LinkedIn will bring forward in future? I think that this is certainly the start of a beautiful friendship.

So what are you waiting for? Get Faceblinktwit-ing!

Whether you want to draw on a canvas, play video, design better forms, or build web applications that work offline, you’ll find that HTML5 is already well-supported. Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and mobile browsers already support a large slice of HTML5. Even Microsoft, rarely known for blazing the trail of standards support, will be supporting most HTML5 features in the upcoming Internet Explorer 9.

HTML5 is the future of web standards, streamlining coding, and web development as a whole, in a way where your browser does much of the work for you. Your code becomes shorter and more intuitive by implementing functionality into the browser on your PC.

Support for HTML5

Below is a list of currently supported browsers, and of course newer versions will be supported.

Take note that even the latest Smartphone operating systems support HTML5 which means you will have rich content and cutting edge internet technologies brought right to the palm of your hand.

Features

Here are a few awesome new features to look forward to in HTML 5.

One of my favourite new features is the Video element. <video>. The video element gives the ability to add video support to your browser natively. This means that you will not have to have any added video plugins when browsing HTML5 sites, such as the seemingly aging Flash and the obscure Silverlite plugin. This is a world of improvement as web developers know, as Flash and other such technologies can be cumbersome and unnecessary. The <video> element support favourite file formats such as .avi, .flv, .ogg, .mov, .mp4, m4v and a few others which are not widely used, but will be the future of video formats such a high definition digital formats.

The Canvas element is pretty interesting. Although I have not yet found a practical use for the element as yet, one use does however come to mind, perhaps the ability to digitally sign documents. The  <canvas> element provides a Paint like environment where you can digitally draw on the on your web page like you would in Paint or Photoshop.

Application caches gives the ability to store web apps like email locally and access it without having to connect to the internet or install an external client like Outlook or Thunderbird. Google gears, which helps you access Gmail offline, is an implementation of HTML 5). If you use Google Gears than you are using already using this feature.

Web Workers , think of it as “Hyper-Threading” for web browsers. Separate background threads are used to do processing without affecting the performance of a webpage. This can be very useful for web applications which rely on heavy scripts to perform functions. Firefox 3.5b has the best implementation of this proposed feature. Opera and Safari also supports some elements of this feature.

Geolocation is a feature that uses a range of technologies such as GPS, Wi-Fi, IP and MAC addresses and Cellphone beacons to determine your location and plotting into a graphical representation. Yes this may seem like a big brother feature but this can only be used if the user gives permission to use the information. Again my experience with such features is limited, so the use I could think of is to find a particular shop, hospital, business etcetera in your area.

Conclusion

The depth of HTML 5 is a rabbit hole I am yet to go down, but I am excited to explore the new possibilities of the Web Dev world, and of course the people we do this for… the beloved end user.

So in conclusion, from a developers perspective,  the question you are probably asking yourself, and invariably need to ask yourself is “How long will HTML5 take to mature into a supported and usable language in real world senarios?”. Well in my research, I have found that it is worth advancing to HTML5, as HTML5 has features to support backwards compatibility for older browsers, although due to it’s relative newness to the development world, be advised to research and to tread carefully and ensure the features you use are fully supported or have an alternate method for backwards compatibility.

From the end users perspective, its easy, you have nothing to lose, keep your browsers up-to-date and keep experimenting with newly recommended browsers ( Firefox is my favourite by the by) to fully enjoy the rich content people like us strive to bring to you.

The first word that comes to mind when attempting to describe the initial feeling of entering the world of web development, is “overwhelmed”. There really is no other way to sum up the past couple of months. As the resident noob in the office, my average day is made up of countless questions, many a confused facial expression, copious amounts of coffee (filter or nothing thank you), and bouts of frustration – especially when it comes to cross-browser compatibility issues. I’ve learned that tables are the enemy, lunch is optional, Tenacious D makes for good background tunage whilst working, and that your best friend is not the four legged furball at home, but in fact, Google.

So far, the most challenging and, unfortunately, unavoidable problem I’ve been faced with is the proper placement of three Div elements next to each other. The solution that works in one site won’t necessarily work in another and this issue seems to be a constant catalyst for the use of bad language – well for me anyway.

Another hurdle that I still haven’t been able to clear is the application of “good practice” when coding. So instead of just making something work, you also have to make the code look sexy which in turn will help speed up the site. This sometimes requires you to think a couple of steps ahead, and right now, I’m not thinking any further than the third Div element in the row that doesn’t want to go where I want it to, unless I give it a negative margin. (Negative margins are apparently good friends with tables).
It’s impossible to predict what each day will hold as you’ll encounter fresh and intriguing problems each day. I still remember the day I was given a site to practically build from scratch. It was unnerving at first but as I progressed, an undeniable sense of triumph came over me. I love the fact that solutions to problems can’t be spoon-fed, you’ll need to do the bulk of the figuring-out process all by yourself. It will be frustrating, it will take time, but the end result is unparalleled.
One thing that I’ve learned that stands out is the fact that, whatever the coding problem is that you’re facing, or whatever new and flashy trick you want to add to your site, it CAN be done. I have yet to hear the phrase, “I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.”

But it’s up to you to make it work, and that’s what makes this job absolutely great.

Web development is indeed a seemingly boundless industry and there is so much to learn. Focussing on one thing can be a daunting task. But fear not, help is at your fingertips, and interacting with your knowledgeable colleagues isn’t a bad idea either.

In the end it will all be worth it. Being a web developer is a total blast. If you like the idea of being in an environment where problem solving takes place all day, you’ll love this. I do.
There is unlimited room for you to grow and as long as you keep pushing yourself and are always hungry for more knowledge and insight, you’ll be fine.

That is why, when choosing a Website Hosting Provider to host your website, a number of factors will determine which host will suit you best.

First of all you need to look at your requirements for your website:

• What kind of website is it? Is it a static HTML website, or is the web site built in a higher end development language such as PHP, ASP, Coldfusion etc.?
• If they were built with higher end development languages there is a good chance you will have a database, and would need database hosting included in your website hosting package.
• You will need to find out what kind and amount of traffic you are expecting to your website and what kind of information your site will serve to the public, for example, will many users come to your site and download videos and documents, these tend to be large in size? If this is the case, you will need to look at the bandwidth allocated in your hosting package.
• You will need to find out this information from the developer of your site before choosing your hosting solution.

All these are requirements that need to be catered for by your website host, as well as your chosen hosting packages.

Once you understand the nature of your website, it’s time to do a bit of research. You will need to search the internet for hosts that can provide you with a hosting solution that meets your needs.

Once you have determined your hosting requirements, you will need to look at your budget. This will determine what kind of a hosting package you will ultimately go for. Naturally nobody wants to overspend, but you need to determine the importance of your website to your business.

What you need to be aware of is that cheap hosting does not necessarily mean quality hosting. If you are just displaying a couple pages with static information that never changes, and your website is simply a means for clients to find and contact you, you may be able to get away with a cheaper hosting offer.

If you largely rely on your website to advertise and generate business, we would suggest asking a few questions before making a decision:

• Will the website be hosted locally in your country, as this can affect the speed of your site? If your site is slow you can end up losing clients due to bounces (leaving the site before it’s loaded or spending less than a few seconds on your home page,) or just plain lack of interest.
• What kind of support does the host offer, and what is their turnaround time on support requests? In our experience this can be one of the most frustrating areas regarding hosting, as good support and advice can be hard to find. We are sure many of us have had experiences with call centres where you are unsure whether you can trust the staff to handle your requests.
• Is the host a reseller? There are many generic resellers out there. If your host is a reseller, you may have problems with the chain of support, where your host has to rely on the parent company to resolve issues. This comes back to the above question of support.
• Does the host have backup contingencies? Losing your website data can be devastating and can potentially cost you in un­catered for amounts and in lost revenue, as well as retrieving or rebuilding data. Ultimately this can cost you time and money and in many cases can be debilitating to your business as a whole.
• Do the hosting providers have the technical skill and understanding of website technology to support you if there are issues? Many times we get contacted by people who have an issue and unfortunately no one at the hosting company has any technical skills to assist, resulting in the clients site being down for 3­4 days.

As tempting as some of the unbelievable prices on hosting can be, this can be a problem in the future. Hosts often lure you in with prices that look good on the surface, but when you realise that your site may need more requirements outside of your cheap hosting package scope, you may find out the costs versus quality of service do not weigh up.

Ultimately your projected ROI (return on investment) of your website will determine the importance of your website to your business, which will in turn determine which website hosting provider will suit your needs.

In summary, before choosing a host, consider what role your website will play in your business. Websites are no longer a nice to have but rather a critical business factor that determines your online presence in the market. Considering the ever growing dependency on the internet for just about every aspect of business from communication, to advertising, to sharing information, to sales, choosing a host should be a carefully thought about process.