Website design

Recently I've had two different clients feel that their sites are outgrowing their current hosting plans, either by running out of space or by loading... very... slowly...

Sometimes these problems are easily rectified with the current hosts or may be caused by a temporary glitch on the server computers that is quickly set right. However, if problems are consistent or if you are setting up your site for the first time I have put together some of the most common hosting solution that I offer to clients.

There are many hosting companies offering different solutions out there, this is simply my own experience of the ones I have found to be the best with a simple explanation of how some of the packages work. Also, this is by no means comprehensive and I'm really talking about hosting suitable for small to medium sites.

Shared hosting

In a shared hosting situation the hosting company puts many sites onto each server computer. This is the easiest, cheapest and most common way to get hosting.

The problem can be that the dodgier the company, the more sites are sharing the same system resources - which can result in a slowdown for your site if other websites on the same machine are working hard at the same time. It's very normal to have 100s of sites sharing one server and not unusual to have 1000s.

Ilisys: Ilisys is a hosting company out of Perth, WA that provides high-quality shared hosting and I have always found that they manage the resources of their servers quite carefully and don't overload them. They have excellent tech support and customer service, and they are also 100% carbon neutral if you care about that sort of thing. The business has been recently bought by MYOB so it will be interesting to see if that has any affect on their performance.

Reviews are a great way of adding user-generated content to any website, but what happens when your reviewers turn nasty and leave very critical comments? Not only does it reflect negatively on your own site, but here in Australia there can be legal ramifications.

The laws I am talking about are regarding libel, the written form of slander. It prohibits a writer from damaging the reputation of someone else, known as 'defamation', and the laws are designed to temper the power to falsely sway public opinion that an unscrupulous member of the press or other influential writer might have.

Neither freedom of speech nor freedom of the press are constitutionally guaranteed in Australia in the way they are in US. Instead, there are several acts under which civil or even criminal action action may be brought, with statutes in some jurisdictions providing for fines and even imprisonment for serious offences.

Most defamation cases are civil proceedings, often brought by politicians and corporations who consider someone in the media to have defamed them by publishing information critical of their activities.

Fair Comment

For defendants, there are several legal defences available but the most common for reviewers is that of 'fair comment' or honest opinion. The defence of fair comment is available if the comment or opinion is based on statements of fact which are true or commonly known and if it relates to a matter of public interest.

This protects most reviewers, even those that write negatively, if they express their opinion carefully and lay down a bed of facts before presenting their opinions.

Here's an experiment. Unplug your mouse and monitor, and try to use your computer.

Even browsing the internet becomes next to impossible. Yet for many people who have sight problems or other physical disabilities, this is what they are faced with every day.

Our society is increasingly based around information, and the internet is by far our biggest tool for accessing that information. Many of us complete our education, get jobs, work, shop and play online, by filling in forms, typing our names and passwords, clicking buttons with the mouse and using keyboard shortcuts when we know them.

Making your website "Accessible" has come to mean "Making it easy for disabled people to access and navigate." Without sight, or perhaps paralyzed and unable to use a standard mouse or keyboard, many people use special software or hardware to help them move around the internet. An accessible site presents its design and content in such as way as to make it quick and easy for these special devices to navigate and present to the people using them.