March 29, 2019 WordPress 2 Comments

Why Keep hosting and email Separate?

Why Keep hosting and email Separate?

These days it is quite common for hosting companies to include free mail boxes when you sign up for website hosting.

While this may seem to be a win, it may not be the best option to use for website email. Read on to find out why you should keep hosting and email separate.
There are more than a few reasons why.

Website hosting is for websites, not email. support provided for email is secondary. Hosts throw in email because it’s a cheap enticement.
Hosting your email on your website host, uses up space in your hosting database.
Hosting email software is lacking. If you’re used to something like Gmail or even yahoo mail, you will be very sadly disappointed.
Website hosting is not 100% reliable. Fairly reliable, but not 100%. Email is critical to stay in contact with followers and customers. If your website goes down, you still need to be able to contact everyone to let them know you will be up and running again soon. This is something to keep in mind. Don’t lose your followers through losing contact.
Integration with other services is often lacking and you need to custom design it.
Website hosting for email locks you in. If you find a better deal for hosting. Migrating a website is simple. Migrating email can be tricky. Better if your email was stand alone. (this is also true for buying your Domain name)

How do we keep hosting and email separate in real life?

So firstly understand that your WordPress installation can is perfectly capable to handle this with the necessary plugins.

March 29, 2019 WordPress 3 Comments

G-Suite A Tool worth considering

Google G-Suite.

or Google Apps as it was previously named, is something worth considering. It comes in multiple levels starting at free for 14 days.

G-Suite allows you to use or create your professional email address for your domain and further improves email deliverability. But that’s only the start….

What is a professional email address? It is an email address that incorporates your domain name. Not @Yahoo or @gmail of some other mailers domain. If your site domain name was “MyGreatSite.com” then your professional email should be “your-name@mygreatsite.com.

A professional email address give you authority and gives people confidence when dealing with you.

So how do we do it?

First you obviously need to have a website. Which means you have a domain name. Next you need G-Suite. For a website owner it offers some very unique abilities not found anywhere else on the web. When you sign up, you get to use your Domain name for the new G-Suite account. Then you create email address at that domain name. You get mailboxes for those email addresses that are accessed on the Gmail platform but with your domain suffix instead of the .gmail suffix.

There are many mail providers around. Even the ones you will see given as free with some web hosting. The plain truth is that there is not another platform out there that comes even close the the Google Gmail interface and platform. It is easy to use, intuitive, clean, flexible and has endless connectivity with other applications. Its just the winner hands down.

While there is a monthly cost involved for G Suite it is small. Even just for the Google Drive quota that comes with the G-Suite account it is the cheapest space on the web.

So what is the rundown?

March 28, 2019 WordPress 1 Comment

Where should I buy my Domain Names

Where should I buy my Domain Names

This might seen a pretty straight forward thing. You would assume, the easiest option would be to buy Domain names through your Hosting company.

Well yes and no.

There are arguments for and against.

Most Hosting companies primary business is to supply website hosting.

The ability to offer Domain names for purchase, became an addon service that complimented their business.

They are able to sign you up for hosting, secure a domain name, and get you online with less delay.

Now there are companies that started the other way round.

Their primary business is to register Domain names, and broker the transfer of domain names between 3rd parties.

For them Hosting and other services were added later as complimentary services.

You can register a Domain name with them without hosting.

Changing your Hosting provider

I actually have all my Domain names registered at a dedicated Domain Name registrar.

I have access directly to the DNS records, and can point each Domain to whichever hosting company I choose to use.

If i feel the need to change hosting companies through service or suitability issues, I can easily do so.

All I need is:-

a current backup of my website
to install wordpress on the new host,
then point the DNS records to it.

(The files on the old host should be deleted but if you closed your hosting with them they should wipe it anyway)

So that’s one option.

What if I were to have all my domain names registered through my hosting company

So Now need to change to a new Host?

March 26, 2019 WordPress 4 Comments

The definitive WordPress Guide

March 18, 2019 WordPress Post a Comment

Images – Editing paid and free

Images – Editing paid and free

For those who are not ready to go all out purchasing Image editing software, there are plenty of quality options available. Adobe have Adobe Photoshop Express. This is a great application from the makers of the industry leading program Photoshop. It is a great way to experience the power of their parent products and decide whether it suits your needs. Once you use it for a while you will have an insight that will enable you to decide if you need more. It is also a way to compare its power to other available applications.

In this image beside I snipped doing a Google search you can also see some of the other often searched for image editing applications.

There are many, but as you will quickly find,

some are pretty basic on what you can do
some quickly start prompting you to move up to their paid version
some are extremely powerful but you need a pilots licence to drive them.
some are missing the most basic tools
some are great but quality suffers with extensive editing
some want to reinvent the wheel with interfaces that are not intuitive

Something you will notice is the best tend to be close copies of the benchmark Photoshop user interface. Why? because it works and people can use previous knowledge in other similar programs to find things easier.

I have to warn you, Image editing and manipulation can become addictive. It tends to stimulate your creative streak.
Especially when it can also rescue those photos you took that never turned out right.

Month: March 2019