Could I have recommendations please for cheap, reliable web hosting in the UK for my new website? (Ideally without monthly usage/bandwith restrictions as I have a lot of streaming audio and video content). Must be ad-free too. Thanks muchly.
The help me with computer-related stuff please thread
Posts: 573
If you want cheap and reliable, try http://www.hihosting.co.uk/webhosting.html
(That's the company of Dan, who used to be registered on the old site but I don't think has transitioned here, yet)
I've got three sites there and apart from the very occasional blip, which is no more than the blips you see on even the biggest sites, it's been fine for me
http://www.fasthosts.co.uk/web-hosting/ have unlimited* bandwidth but obviously your costs are going up considerably.
* I'd suspect even with unlimited there's a "fair use" policy hiding somewhere in the same way there is with "unlimited" broadband connections. You'd have to double check.
HiHosting is on the smaller end of the scale compared to the behemoth of FastHosts, so it's up to you where you'd rather place your trust. Just on a personal note whenever I've had a question I've either opened a live chat window or sent an email and Dan has helped me out straight away.
Thanks Mod, much appreciated; I'll check them out.
Thanks Mod.
Yeah, still getting used to the new site!
Mod's right in cautioning against "unlimited" hosting. There's no such thing, and normally you'll find you're either CPU or inode limited.
Setting a bandwidth and space limit means your clients know what you're getting and is in my opinion the honest way to do business.
Happy to help if you've got any questions, best way is to send a sales ticket on our site or start Live Chat if you have more questions.
If you don't think we fit the bill and are still looking for a host then let me know and I'm happy to recommend some other UK hosts that have a good reputation, e.g. not UK2!
Hope that helps.
Cheers,
Dan
www.hihosting.co.uk
Oh, and whatever you do don't register a domain with FreeParking. I'm still trying to work out how to wrestle one I have with them from their clutches.
Thanks to Mod's recommendation and a livechat that you had with my web designer last week, I've decided to go with your company, Dan (once I've got my act in gear). Thanks for the help.
Whilst I'm here, perhaps someone could offer advice on a knackered laptop?
Brand new Samsung something or other, running Windows 7 Home Premium (64) Service pack 1, Intel dual core, 4GB ram.
It was dropped (no visible exterior damage) and subsequently refused to boot (hung on startup screen) and was sent for repair to approved Samsung place. They sent it back with a clean re-install (having apparently stuck internal bits back down properly again or something) and, after restoring original programs, docs, settings etc. it appeared to be working ok again.
However, now (2 weeks later), it's suddenly decided to go on a major go-slow (i.e. every single action such as opening any new window or dialog box takes at least a minute or two) and yet there's nothing untoward showing in Resource Monitor... i.e. CPU/Memory/Disk shows nothing much going on...
Any advice on how to determine (fairly simply) what might be the problem (e.g. hardware diagnostics?)
So far, I ran a Memory Diagnostic tool at startup which came up with nothing.
Sounds like the hard disc took a beating.
I just tried to run the 'Samsung Recovery' program to save a complete image of the C drive externally and it said it found a bad sector...
Buying a new pc soon and plan to stick Linux on it, I'm just going to use it for web browsing and a bit of programming. Trouble is I haven't got a clue which version to go for, I've spent hours browsing for advice and am now more undecided than ever. Any advice would be welcome.
I can't recommend one being better than another, but Ubuntu works fine.
Pfft, that's a toughy.
Have you checked to make sure it's not set to a battery saver power plan?
How about CPU core temp?
http://alcpu.com/CoreTemp/
I assume you've done a full virus scan using your program of choice? I recommend Avast if you don't have a program of choice.
Like mod, I've not tried many but found Ubuntu the most accessible and a great community and forums for assistance
Thanks Mod but Avast is already installed and a full system scan came up clean in the last few days. It's so slow that there's definitely something badly wrong - I'm taking it back to the repair centre again and I'll tell them to fix it properly this time. Maybe the HD needs replacing...? If the HD is knackered and there was no OS installation disc with the laptop (i.e. it was all in a recovery partition or however it is they do it these days), how can the OS be re-installed if a new HD is fitted?
They should post you an OEM disc
Hey guys
Halp please, Windows7 has this curious behavoiur whereby it scales printing to whatever the screen resolution is
This is causing quite a few headaches, does anyone know off the top of their head how to turn it off
Start>Printers>Right Click, Printing Preferences
It's going to vary from printer to printer though depending on what drivers are installed. Here's the scaling page for my Samsung, not that that helps much.
It also might be the application overruling preferences, but I assume you've tried that.
Cheers Mod, not sure it's that. Pretty sure it's an OS feature, two machines same printer, same print config, same program with same global config, same report, different screen resolution, different margins when printing. Appreciate the effort though, bloody annoying not knowing where to fix it
Hmm.
I don't think there is a global printer options setting in windows. It's all done on a per device basis.
I'd suggest that the program or the settings on the one you're having trouble with is wrong in some way, but if you've read across and compared everything may be not.
If they're on the same network you could try sharing the printer from the first machine and then printing to it from the second, see if that produces the same results. If it does then it's the source application set up wrong somewhere.
Have you got the same version drivers on both machines?
hey, could any netwizs tell whats the difference between links that open a new tab, and those who annoyingly just change current page?
also, if this doesn't just happen by random magic,, how to write linkyes that open in a new tab.?
sign by: "le horror of hitting right mouse button to not jump out of page"
My PC has been running stupidly slow recently. To the point that Firefox actually crashes temporarily before finally starting.
I've removed lots (and I mean lots) of pointless programs and software I have on there, I've done a disk defragment and a cleanup.
My last resort is removing my anti-virus software, I'm using AVG and Superfreeantispyware. Do you think it's AVG letting the machine down?
(Windows 7 64bit, 4gb RAM, 2.7Ghz processor)
PSN: Sasukekun
Currently trying to play: FIFA 12, Virtua Tennis 4, Uncharted 3 MP, Portal 2, Naruto: UNS2, Nier, Ico & SotC HD, Child of Eden, House of the Dead: Overkill EC, Alpha Protocol.
Err...
You're talking about two different types of links.
Site makers decide whether the link should open in the same tab, or a new one. Usually if it's an off site link and they want the link to open in a new tab and their site to stay running. If it's just normal navigation they want the page to load in the same tab.
Before we had tabs off site links would open a whole new instance of the browser, nowadays they usually all stay grouped in one browser under different tabs. (IE handles this slightly differently than the other three)
You can make any link you click open in a new tab by holding down CTRL and clicking, or clicking the mouse wheel (if your mouse supports this) or by right clicking and selecting Open in new Tab.
I don't think it's possible to force an off site link to open in the same tab, maybe it is but I've never seen that facility.
In my experience AVG has been total shite. Twice I've tried to fix slow running PCs with it by uninstalling and loading Avast instead, twice Avast has found and quarantined nasties AVG hadn't.
I don't necessarily think AV is your problem but purely from my personal experience I wouldn't use/trust AVG.
Avast you say? At least if I change my PC will be more 'piratey'.
Any more processes I can run to try and speed the damn thing up? There's over 100GB of hard drive space and as I said the drive has been defragmented and the chaff has been culled. I can't think of anything else that could sort it.
PSN: Sasukekun
Currently trying to play: FIFA 12, Virtua Tennis 4, Uncharted 3 MP, Portal 2, Naruto: UNS2, Nier, Ico & SotC HD, Child of Eden, House of the Dead: Overkill EC, Alpha Protocol.
thanks
[for the rest too. been wondering]
... all links should open new tab
Re. AV software. I changed to MS Security Essentials a few months ago. Haven't had any reason to complain about it. Of course, my laptop my be riddled with bastard software now, I dunno.
always hilarity.. :)
If you're running slow, CCleaner can be a useful tool for clearing out the crap, I've heard.
My download speeds are between four and ten or eleven Mbps, depending on the time of day, but upload speeds are always between 0.75 and 0.95 Mbps. Should it be better? If it's low, is there a reason it would be low for uploads but fine for downloads? Is there a way to improve it?
I use it, it works. Well featured for a freebie.
Jimmy_The_Lips wrote: A hairy baby with a hole in its head that you want to stick your poky stick into. Yes.
Come, join us: www.thebearandbadger.co.uk
Sounds about right for ADSL2+.
It sounds like he's on Virgin cable. They're notorious for giving you a huge down and tiny up connection. For most people that's not a problem but for gaming it's a bit more tricky as it's almost all up connection that governs lag (along with ping obviously)
Saying that, .75-.95 up is way more than the recommended minimum (gaming moves pretty tiny amounts of data otherwise it wouldn't be playable) so in general it should be fine.
Virgin might up the up speed but I doubt it, the whole thing is optimised for down speeds.