TECHNOLOGIES: HTML, ASP, Access Databases.

A few of my clients have their site hosted at Affinity.net. The don't appear to be hosting directly under Affinity anymore, opting to create multiple companies for strategic hosting plans.

ADMIN CONSOLE: Their admin console runs on PHP and uses both HTTP and HTTPS frames. Thus, you'll usually get a browser alert when entering the admin section if you have the standard browser settings in place.

QUIRKS:

• Allows only 1 FTP user. This can be a bit frustrating when multiple developers need access to the site for transferring files. They will all have ADMIN privledges for the site.

TECHNOLOGIES: HTML, PHP, MySQL, and ASP (ChiliSoft ASP Engine)

I set up my first website with ValueWeb on 6/19/03 based on Affinity.net's reputation. Thus far they have provided excellent service and availability. ValueWeb offers the MIVA merchant software for creating a web store. The MIVA is a bit tricky to get started with and takes a while to understand how and where to edit things in order to modify the look. But this is not an issue directed towards ValueWeb.

They revamped their interface in 2004 and streamlined some of the processes. I think the change is a beneficial one.

ADMIN CONSOLE: So far I think they have a very decent admin console. Protected through popup USERNAME/PASSWORD authentication, the admin console navigation is very easy to deal with. However, some sections of the admin console require a separate login.

TECHNOLOGIES: HTML, PHP, MySQL

Though the price is different and remains a low-cost solution for smaller sites, the administration layout for this hosting company makes administration a headache. For the price, I think that other hosting solutions are better suited to administer a site, something smaller companies may be doing.

ADMIN CONSOLE: The admin console for this site is cumberson to deal with. It's not that intuitive, but does offer the basic features you would expect for a console.

TECHNOLOGIES: UNIX AND WINDOWS

ADMIN CONSOLE: XO offers some moderately priced hosting solutions. While their services are more expensive, their reliability as a hosting company justifies the cost if you have mission-critical website apps running. Their ANTI-SPAM filters for the mail works very well and offers a wide range of flexibility. The only downside is that you need to login to the webmail to delete the SPAM (Junkmail). It would be nice to automatically delete it. For one of my clients, this means that when the main contact is out of the country, I usually get notices that we are over the limit because so much spam comes into this person's Inbox.

As of 2nd Quarter 2004 XO divided their Spam filtering services into two tiers. The first tier provides a lower level of spam filtering for free. A significant amount of spam still gets through. If you want to upgrade to the Premiere spam filter, you will incur a small monthly fee. Too bad the Premium feature is what the service used to be. I haven't been particularly happy with this division of service.

TECHNOLOGIES: WINDOWS only

The NeonZ Enterprizez website has been hosted at Winsave.com since March of 2004. It has been very reliable and I am happy with their service.

In March 2005 Winsave implemented Symantec's Brightmail Antispam software on all of their hosting accounts. I can say that I am tremendously happy with the result. Instead of receiving 200 emails a day on an account I stopped using because of spam, I now get about 2.

If you are a new client and need simple hosting features, this is the hosting company I will choose. I have moved about 5 clients to this service and they have been happy with it. Additional benefits have been added to the hosting plans such as increased email storage, increased email accounts, and increased monthly bandwidth.

ADMIN CONSOLE: The admin console for Winsave is very basic and efficient. The configuration of the hosting plan doesn't require a lot of buttons to click. The email manager is very easy to use and I enjoy its layout.

The WebMail feature could use some work, but it functions properly most of the time and gets the job done.