Just My 2 Cents!

My opinion on general things I encounter.

[take-my-2-cents]

avast! Antivirus

So it's been almost a year since I switched from McAfee to avast!

Why? Simply because McAfee was getting slow-ish, their team was slacking and to be honest I didn't enjoy too much them being purchased by Intel (source). Along with their 2010 update fiasco that caused major meltdown of Windows XP computers, I thought it may be time to move on and try something new, something different and possibly something better.

At the time I had avast! Free Mobile Security on my Galaxy Note 2 Android phone, and I was very pleased with it, and my McAfee subscription was just about to expire, so I said why shouldn't I try avast! ?

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and loved it from the very beginning.

It has a clean interface which is easy to get around in, and I've felt the lack of sluggishness that McAfee had gotten me used to right away.

I had started out with their 30 days Trial of avast! Internet Security, and after just few days I had already purchased the license.

Ever since then I've only had avast! on my PC, my laptop and my HP Envy x2 tablet, since one subscription gives you 3 licenses for a whole year, I said why not.

Comparing the performance across all 3 devices, I have to say that even on the HP Envy x2, which has a pretty weak CPU and low RAM, the avast! software is barely noticeable, resource-wise.

The avast! team is very active and they seem to be on top of their game, releasing antivirus database upgrades even twice per day, so basically as soon as a threat is detected worldwide they include it into their database and upgrade your protection right away so you will not get affected by that particular virus or malware.

Their software has some very cool features, I'll just go through some:

- along side the usual Quick Scan and Full Scan, it also has the Boot-time scan, which will require you to reboot your system, then it scans your entire PC before Windows starts, this way it can fully eliminate any infection you may have, that usually cannot be removed if Windows is running, as those infected files are used by Windows itself.

- Software Updater lets you know when you have software installed on your PC that is outdated and can possibly be a security risk AND provides you with a direct button to upgrade said software, it makes it very easy to keep all my software up to date.

- Sandbox allows you to run any application in its own sandbox environment to make sure it cannot spread on your PC if it is malicious.

- SafeZone creates a completely isolated desktop on your PC where you can safely use your private details (such as credit cards), without having to worry about anyone peeking in.

- you can access any other devices you may have that are linked to your avast! online account, right from your PC's avast! software. If you have an Android phone and you have avast! Free Mobile Security installed on it you can control it and trace it remotely from your PC.

- detailed Statistics showing you in real time what has been scanned on your PC and threats from around the world with their Global Stats.

- many other features

I've decided long ago that I'm going to be sticking with avast! as my security software. I personally find the avast! Premier version a bit of an overkill, as I don't need its extra features from avast! Internet Security, so I ended up buying the Internet Security version, which works out great for my needs.

But don't take my word for it, check them out yourself, the 30 days trial is more than enough for you to realize the awesomeness of it all:

If you've enjoyed my review please use my affiliate link:

http://www.avast.com/en-eu/get/myhsygOF

If not then just use the regular, non-affiliate link:

http://www.avast.com

But either way you've got to check them out, they are definitely worth the move from whichever antivirus software you're currently using.

[take-my-2-cents]

Azendoo - The project manager that keeps on giving... for free

Have you ever wanted to put some structure into your online projects? or even into your own personal life?... How about ever wanting to easily collaborate with other people across the web, work together on the same project in an easy to operate Project Manager?

Well I came across Azendoo a few months back and I'd have to say I'm very pleased with their service, and best of all it's free (well, they also have paid packages, but the free one is so good that you won't even feel the need to ever upgrade).

I'd like to go through some of their features really fast:

- Skype, DropBox, Google Drive, Box.com, Evernote integration - you will be able to share and communicate with your team easily using all these platforms already integrated into the Azendoo application

- Unlimited subjects and tasks - you don't have to worry when opening new projects or assigning new tasks or subjects, since there's no limit to how many you can have (I personally have 7 opened projects, with god knows how many tasks/subjects on each of them)

- Mobile app - so you can access your projects on the go. All though their mobile app still requires a lot of work, compared to their web app is still in early stage and lacks a lot of features, but it's still a big plus you can check up on things right from your mobile phone

- 10GB Storage - yeah, you can store a lot of project files and share them with your team without worrying about Space.

- Easy to use web application - everything is so easy to understand and easy to manage your Projects, Subjects, Tasks, Members, etc. I found that planning with Azendoo is incredibly easy.

* Please note that all the above features are included into the FREE package.

Be sure to check them out, they're amazing and they're constantly adding more and more features:

- Non-affiliate link: https://en.azendoo.com/

- Affiliate link: http://azn.do/1bzx1KY

I'm not really posting this to gain any affiliate gains, but more to support them since they're doing an amazing job and I'm pretty much leeching off their free package.

[take-my-2-cents]

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) - Movie Review

After watching this inspiring movie I've decided to go out to follow my dream and fulfill my destiny.

As it turns out kite flying is way more complex, time consuming and tiring than I had anticipated, so I came back home and resumed my day-dreaming activity which requires the minimum amount of effort.

And here's the bonus soundtrack:

[take-my-2-cents]

Top 3 best forums to advertise your web hosting business

As a followup of my previous blog post I thought it's only normal I should post the best forums as well, to see how they compare with the worst forums.

On the 1st place we have:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=45

By far the most popular web hosting forum out there, it's very well organized and structured.

They allow Normal Users to post in each marketplace section once every 7 days. Emphasis added on "each" because this is very important, as opposed to many other forums from this branch, webhostingtalk does not bulk together all hosting types (shared, reseller, vps, vds, cloud, dedicated servers, etc).

They offer 2 types of Memberships:

- The premium one which will allow you to post in the Marketplace every 6 days (as opposed to every 7 days like Normal Users). This membership cost is pretty much affordable for anyone, $49.99/year

- The corporate membership offers you the ability to post every 3 days in the Marketplace Section, but it's not for every pocket, $100 - $125 /month.

Additional to the Membership benefits you can also, individually, boost each of your Marketplace threads. The prices for boosting your threads differ from section to section (eg: Shared Web Hosting section has higher prices than the Reseller Web Hosting section).

I'll go into the prices for the Shared Web Hosting section. You can upgrade your thread as follows:

1. You can sticky your thread, price $200/week (it's pretty much always sold out)

2. Highlight your thread in yellow, price: $30/week

3. Have your thread tweeted to Web Hosting Talk's 18,000+ followers on Twitter, price: $75/week (keep in mind that most of their followers are not interested in buying your web hosting services, as they are probably selling their own as well)

4. Make your thread title big and bold, stands out among the other thread titles, price $30/week

*Observations: (1) is pretty much always sold out so you'll have a hard time catching a break, and it's quite expensive; the (2) and (4) are good, makes your thread really stand out and pop, but without (1) your thread will get pushed to the second page within 12hrs after posting, thus making (2) and (4) kinda useless; and as I've said (3) is only meant for some services not for all, since you'll be approaching an audience of sellers as well, not really buyers.

On 2nd place we have:

https://forums.digitalpoint.com/forums/web-hosting.98/

DigitalPoint is one of the biggest Forums on the Internet, with huge numbers of visitors, your advertising thread will get great exposure here as well.

Probably one of the first things that pops out is the heavily modded vBulletin Forum, as a programmer myself I can only admire the work they've put into customizing and modding the forum, it has unique features that I've never seen anywhere else on any other vBulletin forum. And despite it being a huge forum it is lightning fast.

Their general Marketplace section is well structured, but unfortunately the WebHosting section of the market is just one section, no further structure there, so everything goes in the same place, kinda of a pileup of threads in there.

If you upgrade to their Premium Membership you will be able to bump your marketplace post every 7 days (as opposed to every 30 days like Normal Users), and also they won't fill your post with third party ads, like they do with Normal Users' posts. The bad part though is that you can bump only one thread on the entire forum, every 7 days, so it's not one thread per section. Another benefit of their Premium Membership is the fact that your thread gets 2hrs sticky after you post it and 2hrs sticky at the end of the auction if you make it an auction.

Tip: Make your web hosting thread an auction that lasts 3 days, this way you'll have it sticky 2hrs after you post it, 2hrs 3 days later, and another 4 days later you can bump it / re-list it, and repeat the entire process allover again. I found this to be the max exposure.

Other than the premium membership they don't offer any other (forum specific) methods of boosting your thread.

On the 3rd place, way way behind:

http://www.freewebhostingtalk.com/

This only applies for free web hosting offers, if you have any.

FreeWebHostingTalk has been recently acquired by WebHostingTalk's owners iNet interactive. The forum severely lacks the success of WebHostingTalk.

Not much else to say about it, I'm guessing the new owners hope for a growth before introducing any paid means of promoting your services.

For now you can simply post a normal thread, and that's pretty much it.

[take-my-2-cents]

Top 3 worst forums to advertise your web hosting business

I recently came across some "WebMaster" Forums, which have some retarded rules, and when I say that I literally mean it.

On the 3rd place we have:

http://forums.devshed.com/web-hosting-offers-100/

This is actually more of a funny and sad moment for the Admins of this forum, as they don't allow you to post links in your thread until you are no longer a "new member", whatever that means as I've gone through their rules and nowhere does it say how many posts you need to have or how old your username needs to be in order to be able to post links in your threads. Anyway as I was saying they don't allow links to be posted by new members, which is a pretty common thing to do on forums these days if you don't want your forum being spammed a lot... except one little detail on this particular forum, you can simply just EDIT your forum post after you've posted it (without any links) and simply add the links in your edited post.

I found this to be both sad and funny at the same time, as it serves absolutely no purpose to block link posting in the first place.

On the 2nd place we have:

http://www.v7n.com/forums/web-hosting/

Now, well this place is special indeed, unfortunately not the good kind of special, but more like the kind of special that requires you to go to that special institute, because believe me, when you get a hold of V7N forum rules your head will explode.

First off they require you to have a special Thread Title, as exampled by them.

Examples: Reseller: yourdomain.com Shared: yourdomain.com Dedicated: your domain.com

Ooookay, ignoring the fact that they fail to use Thread Prefixes, as opposed to everyone just typing out the obvious prefixes, they also fail to realize how dumb it is not to allow people to have a small description of their offered service in THE TITLE OF THE THREAD.

That's right, you as a potential client, will have to retardedly click through ALL the threads in there, to actually see what's inside because the V7N Forum Admins fail so hard to understand common sense, and fail to understand that nobody is desperate enough to go through all those threads looking for something.

Threads have titles JUST so you know what the hell is in that thread without opening it, and if the title interests you THEN you open the thread.

Oh well, I guess we can overlook this one silly rule?

But wait, there are more silly rules!

You are NOT allowed to put more than 1 link in your thread... why you may ask... who the hell knows... their justification "we simply lack common sense".

This once again, is absurd, because... you know... you MAY have more than one product you wish to advertise or you MAY want to point the readers to your Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, along with oh maybe your Twitter or Facebook page... but V7N Admins simply said "ah fuck that shit, just ONE link, that should be enough!"

And to top it all off, like the cherry on top of this piece of garbage that is The V7Network... if your post breaks any of these absurd rules, or if the Admins are PMS-ing, they'll remove your thread... without even the slightest warning, private message, email, poke, whatever mean of letting you know you did something wrong and what is it exactly that you did wrong... NOPE, your thread is simply gone, wiped forever, you will not even know if you don't constantly check their forum. I guess it's this fun little game the Admins play with their minions, err I mean customers, a game called "Guess why your thread was deleted!".

And the 1st Place and all time winner:

http://www.netbuilders.org/hosting-ads/

This forum pretty much gave up all together the User torture and imposed a $5 fee per month for the people that wish to promote web hosting on their forum. "Why should we make weird and absurd rules to torture our Users, we'll just repulse them all away with this meaningless monthly fee!"

Don't get me wrong, the value of the $5/month fee isn't the problem here, it's the fact that they ask for any amount of money that's the problem.

Their justification is: "This forum has a LOT more people reading it than posting, so we hope you make a lot more than the fee for posting the ad."

Major forums such as WebHostingTalk or DigitalPoint don't ask you to pay a cent to promote your hosting business (sure you can pay to enhance your thread but that's another story)... and here we have this barely known forum, trying to make a honest buck charging 5 dollars per month.

As a result, the section linked above by me has only 1 thread posted, apparently nobody cared to pay $5/month to get much less than if they were to post literally anywhere else.

------------------------------

Conclusion:

As I surfed around these pathetic forums, I was constantly thinking to myself "why, oh why are the Admins here trying to repulse and send their Users elsewhere with their absurd made-up rules?"

I am still puzzled why would you (as a Forum Admin) decide up on some rules, that make your users jump through hoops when there are clearly better forums out there, and you very well know this, you know your Forum isn't number one out there, not even in top 10, and instead of making it EASY for users to get along with your Forum you do everything in your power to push them away.