Earlier this year I signed up with PacificHost.com and today I cancelled my account.

My Pacific Host Review

When I first contacted the team at Pacific Host they couldn’t be helpful enough.  Nothing was a problem and they would be happy to transfer my sites to their hosting package.

The initial transfer turned into a several week long nightmare with my sites being offline for days. When I contacted the support staff I got different advice from different people.  Because of the delay in site propagation across the internet I was constantly waiting to see if the advice had worked or not.  Eventually, I nailed one person down and got them to check over everything until we found the issue that was causing the problem.

We then had a period of several months where things existed in relative harmony.  Apart from a number of reports from my website monitoring company of my sites being offline for a period of time and times where they were slow responding for me, there were no other problems.

Then recently my sites went offline again for a prolonged period.  I signed on to the control panel to lodge a ticket and see that they were experiencing an attack from hackers and it was a host wide blackout while they took care of it.  These things happen and I was miffed but accepting of the situation.

A couple of weeks later I was informed that an email account I was hosting was accused of spam. Sure enough it had been hacked and ($*#@$ spammers had abused it. My hosts were very competent in dealing with the issue and once they had they sent me (no doubt a standard response) reminding of my obligations according to the terms of service and if I was found to be spamming in future I would be suspended. Rather ironic I thought given the down time I just experienced because they themselves had been dealing with hackers.

It turned out that the hackers had done more than access the one email account, and I found evidence of them throughout my cpanel account.  Immediately I contacted Pacific asking for assistance in dealing with the issue.  Hoping they would be able to do a backup restore or have some other solution. The response I received from my helpful hosting company was that I should delete the files and change my CHMOD permissions.  And that was the complete level of help I was offered.

Because I am not a programmer or data base expert, I didn’t know how to check what files I need to delete etc. So in the absence of help from my hosts I had to hire outside help.  The person I contacted to help me could not believe the settings etc that were in my account. He suggested I change hosts immediately.

I took the advice of my hired help since my hosting company showed no interest in helping me.  Although, that is not entirely true, they did offer a new service a couple of weeks later, where I could sign up and pay extra to get help with hackers. I found new hosts who were not only interested in telling me how to do things, they even went as far organizing screen sharing sessions where they showed me exactly what to do.

I have now changed hosting companies and you know what – it went without a single minute of down time.  An entirely different, and almost pleasant experience, when compared with my Pacific Host debacle.

Having moved my sites, I thought I would apply for a refund for the remaining hosting outstanding at Pacific Host. From my initial request I had to respond to no less than 5 emails asking me to stay and wanting to know how they could help me.  Each time I said the help was needed a month ago not now, and could they help me with the refund.  After filling out the right forms and answering all the emails (if I didn’t – my hosting wouldn’t be cancelled and billing would continue), I then find out that they will not be refunding me anything.  Apparently, their terms that “I agreed to” only allow for a 45 day right of refund – after that, screw you.

So I didn’t get any form of refund. But I did get shot of hosts who only seem to be helpful when you are signing up, or looking to unsignup. Once they have your money they are much less interested in your welfare.

PACIFIC HOST REVIEW ENDS

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UPDATE:

I discovered this report about servers being hacked http://thehackernews.com/2011/09/inmotion-hosting-server-and-trinity-fm.html

When I was talking to my good friend Ed, the man behind the best WordPress Security Plugin, and he told me that one of the most common hacking methods is currently to go after the hosting servers where the hackers go after the accounts database on the Sever and steal user account info and then just have their hacking script run off of the list of accounts and domains.

Then they can just mass upload files or inject code into specified file names: index.php, put a new index.html file in the root, inject code into the root .htaccess file and replace or add a new .htaccess file altogether.

Which all sounds very familiar.  As it was just after Pacific Host had been down for an extended period, that I discovered my CPanel was rife with added index.php files. Remember, this was the hosting company that offered me no help in correcting the problem – although they did offer to sell me a security affiliate product soon after.

Is this more than a coincidence PacificHost.com?

“Good Fences Make Good Neighbors” or for those of us who speak English “Good Fences Make Good Neighbours”

This age old proverb was popularized by poet Robert Frost in the early 20th Century with his poem Mending Wall. In the poem Frost tries to explain to the neighbour that there is little point in their annual wall re-building exercise since the neighbour has only pine trees and Frost has only apple trees: “My apple trees will never get across, And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.”

However, Frost’s neighbour understands the wisdom that his father taught “good fences make good neighbours.” So each year the two meet on an appointed day and walk the boundary line between the two replacing the stones that have fallen or been torn down from their stone wall boundary fence.

In this politically correct age it seems there are no fences any more. Everything we do on our own property is under the constant scrutiny of someone. We can not cut down trees, dig holes, or push in roads without permission.  We are not allowed to hurt ourselves without a Government agency investigation into the matter and probably leading to a conviction because you dared to endanger yourself.  Trespassers are able to sue you if they suffer an misfortune while illegally carrying out activities on your property at any time of the day or night.

Never-mind the shenanigans that exist on a global scale. Countries that dictate what other countries should or should not do while ignoring the state of their own backyard. I guess the wisdom in good fences make good neighbours is for simpler time with simpler people.

I see wars break out in the world of virtual communities (much like the typical TV soap opera) and “friendships” breaking down because your friends list includes my enemies list. I am reminded of the old saying that you should not eaves-drop on other people’s conversations if you do not want to hear anything bad about yourself. This is especially true in our global age of the Internet. Where every is connected to everyone else by virtual friends lists. If I am going to nose around in your friends list I am sure there will be overlap with my enemies list.

The age old wisdom that sounds so simplistic in our advanced technological age is no less wise. It is these basics of life that are elementary and yet essential to the foundation of everything we do. You cannot build a community without a few basic ground rules and not the least of these is the understanding that good fences make good neighbors.

One of the great sales pitches used online is the ability to “make money while you sleep.”  There is some truth in that statement because of the nature of the industry. You can make while you sleep, but only if you spend your waking hours setting up the systems that will enable you to do this.

What I have observed is that most people with money make their money while other people sleep. That is to say that they work for it. The people with money are taking action while many of sleep – or watch TV, or are involved in other forms of recreation.

One of things that never ceases to amaze me is the mental aptitude (or lack of it) with a lot of successful people. They were not the smartest kids in school, in fact many of them dropped out of school at an early age. They may have successful businesses, even serial successful business, and yet talking to them you might wonder how they did it.

They all have one thing in common. They took action.

While others discussed the pros and cons, or thought someone should do it, these are the people who went out and did it. They learned as they went, they failed, they got back up and tried again. Eventually, it paid off for them. Yes, I know that some people took a different route and got University degrees, corporate jobs, and eventually bought a company or started their own, but they seem to be the minority.

People who are successful in this life tend to be action takers. All the knowledge in the world will do you no good unless you take action. You can attend as many courses, seminars, programs as you can afford and it will do you no good at all unless you go out and take action on the information you learn.

Another interesting thing about these successful people is that they don’t wait until they know everything there is to know about something before they take action. Yes it pays to some due diligence before launching into a venture, but there is nothing like on-the-job training to accelerate the learning process. The key is to be able to learn from your mistakes, and learn quickly. Don’t keep repeating the same mistake hoping for a different outcome. Find a way to fix it.

Don’t fear mistakes. Many people are afraid to do something in case they fail. Thomas Edison, inventor of the light bulb, is credited with this quote when questioned about his failures “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  He did not invent the theory behind the lightbulb, but he set about creating a system that could be reproduced  where electricity generated light. He did not look at the early attempts as failures, rather as narrowing the options. When he exhausted all the methods that wouldn’t work he knew he would be left with the way that would!

Another quote attributed to Edison is “everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” Or put another way “Great ideas originate in the muscles.” Edison knew well that success required action. People who took massive action were the only ones reaping massive rewards.

The world has changed since the days of Edison, but the principles of success have not. If you want to be more successful than those around you, you have to take more action than they do. Make money while others sleep.

A Business Plan In Time Will Save You Nine (Thousand Dollars Or More).

The following forum post is all too common with people starting out online.

I know where the poster is coming from – I have been there too.

What I wish someone had told me before I was in that position:

Making money online is no different to making money offline. You have to develop a business plan. Take your time and get this part of the process right or you will waste a lot of money.

Once you know what your goal is, and you have a plan to get to that goal, then you can start investing in programs and tools to expedite your journey. Do not buy anything (no matter how good or how much hype surrounds it) unless you understand exactly how it will fit into your business plan. Do not change your business plan to accommodate such purchases as this will cause you to deviate from your goal.

The gentleman in the above post had all the right motives for taking the action he did, but he didn’t have a plan in place to begin with. He is now in the position of having no disposable income to promote the business that he has just bought into. If he had a plan in place he may have chosen a slightly different route. After all, there is a lot a person can do with the $10,000 to $25,000 that he has most likely invested in the tools mentioned (depending at which level he bought into the programs).

It doesn’t matter how good the program/tool is, if it isn’t the right fit for your talents and expertise it will not benefit you at all. Just because your neighbor achieved success with it does not guarantee you will. Fully investigate how these things work before you buy in. If they will not explain the mechanics of the system upfront then keep shopping, there are many systems and business opportunities to choose from.

It is better to have “missed out” on a great deal (as the marketing will tell you) than to have spent all your money on a great deal that will give you a zero return on your investment. I have seen many cases where people have been encouraged to buy into programs using Other People’s Money as a “leveraging tool” only to find themselves paying off a huge credit card debt with no extra money coming in. It can literally take years to recover from these situations (or worse still, it can bankrupt a person).

Unfortunately, there are all too many predators out there wanting to relieve you of your money. Not all of these people are sharks who enjoying preying on the weak and gullible, many are those who were taken in and have no other way out but to recruit others and collect a commission.

If you are reading this before you have made these mistakes, remember:

• Set your goal.
• Create a business plan (get help with this if you have not done it before).
• Stick to the plan – do not get side tracked even if it means missing out on a once in a life time opportunity.
• Only buy tools/programs if you know exactly how they will benefit your plan (and you have the skills to apply them).

Please don’t let me see you making forum posts like the one above!

When is a friend not a friend?

Maybe when you have had too much of a good thing …

Recent innovation in the Google search engine results is to tailor your search results to those people on line to whom you are most connected.

In other words Google has decided that your online friends, and your friends online friends, are probably interested in the same sorts of things that you are, so when you search for something you will probably want to know what your friends have to say about the matter.

The returned result will reflect something like what is happening the picture below (at least that is what the video from the official Google blog says).

That all sounds fantastic doesn’t it?

But if this is the way of the future, what will the future end up looking like?

As I see it there are two possible outcomes.
1) It works like they say it will.
2) It doesn’t work like they say it will.

I am not sure which will be more scary. If it works like they are trying to engineer it to work then the more time you spend online the more the results will be tailored to your tastes and that of your friends.

Can you imagine a world so boring?

You are trapped in a pattern of perpetual sameness. No matter what search term you plug into Google, Google is going to throw back at you results that reflect the browsing behavior of you and your friends. A little too much like inbreeding in my books, self centred at best.

Ok, so initially your social network results have been segregated, but they have been engineering the results to your own habits for some time. And I can understand what Google is trying to do. They are trying to save you scrolling through the results to find sites that might interest you, or sites that feature your friends who obviously interest you.

But sometimes I just like to be surprised!

Perhaps I am strange. Maybe no-one else has learned something new and interesting because of an odd result that came back when they searched for a term on a search engine.

Or how about the other alternative? What if it doesn’t work as they plan?

The more likely outcome, in the short term at least, is that we will be inundated with new “friends.” If the only way of getting your website promoted to new circles of influence is make friends with new people, then I can see those people who currently spam your comment box, your forum, your social profiles, and your email in-box suddenly wanting to become your best friend.

As it is I have a plethora of “friends” from various social sites whose only attempt at interaction with me was to add me as a friend. I am not sure about you, but I thought friendship was a little more than having your avatar displayed on someone else’s friend list. Why would you even bother to go the effort if you were never intending to at least say “hi.”

I guess time will tell if it “works” or not. But at this stage I’ll enjoy the few surprises I discover when doing searches, and I’ll continue to make the most of my relatively small friends list.

Is A Website Essential To My Business?

We live in a country where the people love new technology.  New Zealand was world leaders when it came to EFT POS – Electronic Funds Transfer @ Point Of Sale. Many other new gadgets and gizmos are readily taken up by the Kiwi population.

Broadband is something the majority of New Zealanders are screaming out for. We want it available and we want it faster. It is such a big deal that even the Government has felt compelled to step in and try to sort it out.

What does this tell you?

It tells me that as a population most of us are actively online. Ok, no surprises there. But the staggering thing to me is the lack of recognition of this fact that local businesses seem to have.

I look at the number of businesses listed in the local Yellow Pages and then I do a search for these services online, and in some cases I am drawing a total blank. Even the businesses I do find often only have a listing in an online directory, they do not have a website of their own.

Who is to blame for this seemingly head-in-the-sand approach that NZ businesses are taking?  The Universities that produce all these managers? Business owners that hire staff to take care of computer stuff and have no idea how use one?

All I can say is that if you have a business and it isn’t online you are missing out on a lot of customers.  And if your competition beats you to having an online presence you will be left playing catch-up. It is always harder to outrank someone that already has a web presence for your target keywords.

If you need a little help getting online try NZMarketingSystems.com

A post for those of us who market on the internet.

There are a lot of people panicking and complaining about the F.T.C. (Federal Trade Commission) and the heavy handed actions they are taking with online marketers.

The interesting thing is that they are only enforcing rules that were always in existence but have not been enforced on the internet as strictly as they have been in other forms of media.

I always find it interesting that people get all upset when good business practices and consumer rights are enforced upon them.   I would not run a business that makes it standard practice to screw people, lie to to people, or generally provide substandard value, so this has never really been a concern to me.

Just today I got an email by a well known online marketer that stated this about his product:

... received rave reviews (which unfortunately
we can't print due to the damn new FTC regulations!).

You might think that he has cause for complaint – although I am not sure which rules his reviews were breaking.   However, the interesting thing is that I went the sales page for his product and after reading the page I was greeted with an exit popup when I tried to leave.

Exit popups are fairly common these days.  This particular one offered me an extra $20 discount if I changed my mind and decided to buy after all. It was a ONE TIME ONLY offer that I would never see again if I closed the window.

Here is my problem.  I would be seriously annoyed had I bought at the price first offered, because they were more than happy to sell it $20 cheaper.  But even more annoying is the blatent ONE TIME ONLY offer LIE.  Because I re-entered the site to check (several times), and was offered exactly the same ONE TIME ONLY offer each time.

My point is, here is a classic example of an online marketer complaining about the F.T.C. regulations, while at the same time blatantly trying to rip off his customers.

I say “shame on you Dan Raine.”

Modern Day Gold Rush

As an excellent example of the fact that we learn nothing from history is the Make Money Online exploitation that occurs on the internet.

Thousands of people sign up to the many courses being launched every month.  Some of the courses costing hundreds of dollars and some even costing thousands of dollars.

But just as in days gone by when people rushed to the gold fields it is not the miners that get rich but the store keepers and publicans.  One or two miners strike it rich by fluke just to keep the frenzy building.

Online it is no different. Every now and then someone breaks through and makes thousands of dollars “while they sleep.”  However, for everyone that succeeds there are thousands who fail miserably.  One thing is for sure, those “store keepers” and “publicans” of the Internet Marketing world are getting rich.

It is a sad sight to behold these people flocking to their slaughter. Investing money they don’t have to buy a product that will underwhelm them by its results.  Yet they will not be deterred. They have read the advertising that clearly states they will get rich quick if they own that course.

Please, do yourself a favour and stop chasing the gold at the end of the internet rainbow.  Most people will never recover the cost of their latest course, much less make money online.

“Don’t raise your eyebrow at me”

Said a previous boss to me one day after he had explained our project for the day.

I didn’t realize it was that obvious at that time. But since then I pay more attention to my subconscious displays of disbelief.

What sparked this comment?

Glad you asked.

I got a “Dear Dean McNamara” email from Squidoo HQ today. It wasn’t sent to just anyone.  No, it was sent to the select top 3% of squidoo lens masters.

The intent of the email was suggest that if I wasn’t happy with my Squidoo income I should have a look at the linked lens of tips.

Why should that raise my eyebrow?

Well given that I make approximately $1.50 from lenses each month, sometime is a little more, sometimes a little less, and because I got the email, I must be in the “top 3%” this holds out little hope that the other 97% of Squidoo lensmasters are making much money.

I figured out very early in the game that the effort required to make a living from Squidoo would be far better invested in my own sites – after all, why split the revenue with Squidoo? So I am not too concerned if I make money or not from my lenses – they are there for other purposes.

However, there are a lot of people joining up to Squidoo on an ongoing basis thinking they are going to make money online and be able to achieve this or that. The fact is, I am supposedly in the top 3% and I make $1.50 a month.

So don’t hold your breath is all I am saying …

Alternatively, I might not be as “select” as they suggested. In which case I am thinking that tactic has the potential to backfire. After all, if the majority of people are making similar wages as I am (and I suspect they are, judging by my lens rankings) then they will now think that there is no money to be made from Squidoo and will likely give up.

I wonder which scenario is true …

I was at the library today (long story) and I came across this book in the computer section:

The Accidental Billionaires

The Accidental Billionaires

And I was intrigued as to why it was filed in the middle of all the various computer manuals so I picked it up.

Anyway, long story short, I ended up skim reading through the whole book as it was quite an entertaining read.

If you want to get an idea of what really goes on behind the scenes of these house-hold named internet companies I suggest you grab a copy. I was not surprised to learn what I did, as I have experienced the seedy side of the internet up close and personal myself.

I don’t know how much was fact and how much was embellishment in this story, but I do that nothing has changed. There are still people stealing ideas, stealing traffic, back stabbing, and outright robbing other people blind even as you read this.

Nothing much has changed, except those start-up companies are billion dollar enterprises and there are new companies fighting for global niche domination every day.

All I can advise is that you take the proper care to protect yourself from these kind of shenanigans before venturing too far out into the world wide web way of doing business.