Posts Tagged ‘Study’
In the web hosting market hosting providers use a variety of techniques to magnetize clients. Their features are so much identical that users especially beginners come under dilemma making the whole procedure a daunting one.
For beginner root knowledge to web hosting is essential, he/she should have a satisfactory explanation of the questions like:
1.Web host- it’s meaning?
2. What are the platforms available for host server? Distinguishing between various servers?
3. What is meant by bandwidth?
4. What is meant by a domain name? By what way one can get it?
5. The way one can create web pages.
6. Scripting languages- their meaning? What are their applications?
7. What is meant by FTP?
8. What features are essential for one’s website?
For a user whose intention is to opt a personal website just to publish few pictures and text can even move on to low priced web hosting providers or even to free hosting providers to fulfill his/her requirements.
But it is not going to happen when user possess a business site to promote sales and services, rather one needs to be very careful while dealing with a new web host. One needs to do through investigation before reaching to any form of conclusion. There is nothing when after spending so much time, effort and money user is not finding the site prepared to catch the clients required for the business purposes.
There are several features related to web hosting like storage capacity, bandwidth, platform and scripting languages about which user should have knowledge as early as possible.
After all these procedures the user will get the final list of hosts whose provided features will match user’s requirements but before coming to any of the final conclusion one should inquire about host’s past history, present and past client’s experiences and reviews. All these efforts will definitely influence user’s decision in a positive manner.
There is no assurance that while looking for any of the information such as “best web hosting” or “top 10 hosting companies” on the search engines will provide the user accurate information. This is because ranking on such reviews sites will be on the basis of the companies paying higher commissions to their affiliates.
One can say that after short listening of choices the task had not become easier rather tougher because now user needs to be very alert in every aspect. One has to evaluate them on certain measures, which might take a long period to complete the overall process.
The following are the Sources of information on which one can rely:
1. Minimum three honest and unbiased review sites.
2. Several reviews from several forums.
3. Feedback from customers.
Review Sites:
Review sites can be a key weapon to reach a very near to the actual search. It is particularly recommended for those whom search utility is based on price, space, bandwidth, and Operating Server. Which can be definitely time beneficial for the user.
One should not opt for the review sites mentioning “top 10” or like that. Instead of that user should look for client based review sites. One should evaluate at least three sites to evaluate reviews and opinions. User should remain alert while going through customer reviews as some of them are only meant to trap new comers.
Hosting Forums:
Known to be one of the prime sources of reviews and opinions, these are the open places (forums) where a client can frankly write his/her estimations and belief. But, this also suffers from drawbacks, as due to be an open place a service provider can praise his/her hosting company and competitors can use it as a weapon to damage the public image of other service providing companies. In few of the forums, such activities are not allowed. However, Moderators keep a good look on such activities, but still one cannot assure 100% guarantee of their honesty and credibility. Thus one should keep this thing in mind and then should go on with his/her search.
One can have several forums from search engines. It is quite common that almost all forums are having a search services from which one can search for his/her candidate hosting provider’s name or URL. If one gets something interesting, he/she should continue reading them as much as possible. However if one does not get any results then too there is no need to worry. In that case one can post a thread asking for customer reviews about the intended provider(s). Last but not the least, again the whole thing depends upon the prudence of user.
Customer’s feedback
There are several web hosts listing samples of their customers. Some others are there having forums on their websites for support, where one can find the real case studies where there is an issue raised by real customers and the way is given, how the company dealt it. The thing to consider is there is given the addresses of some customers. One should try to contact those customers to find the reliability of the company’s service and support.
Thus now after all these things it can be assumed that user is in a position to take right decision in order to escape from problems afterwards.
What is OpenStreetMap?
OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, editable map of the entire world, a collaborative project meant to provide free geographic data, such as street maps, to anyone. The OSM data is contributed by community members who use a variety of surveying methods, most utilizing GPS technology.
The project was started because not all geographical data is free in every part of the world. Historically, the street map data of the world has been owned by two companies, Tele Atlas and Navteq. Currently, both Yahoo and Bing still license their map data from Navteq. Up until August 2009, Google also licensed their data from Tele Atlas. Google and Tele Atlas entered into a five-year agreement just a year earlier whereby Tele Atlas provided Google with their data in exchange for a licensing fee and access to updates made by the Google community. In an effort to break the duopoly, Google ended the agreement early in the US and now assimilates data from multiple providers as well as its user community.
While Google has been able to circumvent the hold of the duopoly, this does not improve the lot for the rest of us. We now have one more source to choose from, but are still beholden to three providers instead of two. Any business that collects data from any source originating from Tele Atlas, Navteq, or Google is creating a “derived work,” that now retains the copyright conditions of the original. That means license fees, contractual restrictions, and so on. OSM is trying to break the hold these companies have on map data by building an alternative data source that is free of licensing restrictions.
Why does Urbo.ro uses OSM?
Urbo.ro is a location-based, community oriented business directory in Romania. When developing Urbo.ro, there was a choice to be made on what mapping service to use. The map is an important feature of the site and therefore the choice on map providers was critical. The considerations in choosing a mapping provider were as follows:
• Mapping coverage of Romania
• Accuracy of the street data
• Ability to contribute and correct the data
Mapping coverage of Romania
A year ago, when we started developing the map, in terms of accuracy and coverage of Romania, OSM was far superior to Google Maps. Google’s coverage of Bucharest was inadequate and their street maps in other cities was virtually nonexistent. However, over the course of the last year, Google Maps’ improvement has been remarkable. As you can see from the screenshots below, their coverage is now roughly equal to that of OSM.
This is an OpenStreetMap view of Bucharest:
This is a view of the same area viewed using Google Maps:
Accuracy of the street data
At the start of our map development, we also performed extensive research on the accuracy of the street map data. Google Maps previously relied on Europa Technologies for their map data in Romania. Google’s street map was not only incomplete, but grossly wrong at times — we used two methods to check the accuracy: (1) we tested several positions using GPS, and (2) we marked points on the satellite imagery and switched between the map layers to determine which layers aligned to the satellite. OSM data, on the other hand, easily passed the accuracy test. The precision of the OSM data may surprise many, given that it’s a freely editable community map. But the contributors that take the time to edit the map are dedicated map enthusiast, which we have found leads to higher quality.
Our recent tests once again show remarkable improvement in Google’s map data. As these screenshots demonstrate, Google’s accuracy is once again on par with OSM.
Ability to contribute and correct the data
OSM, while superior to other maps in Romania, is not perfect. The ability to correct the map data was a key factor in our decision to work with OSM. Not only was OSM better in Romania at the time of our development, but it will only get better over time.
The Use of OpenLayers on Urbo.ro
Despite our strong support for OSM, we realize that other map providers may provide other advantages for users. For this reason, we built the Urbo map using OpenLayers, which gives users the ability to switch between map layers.
OpenLayers helps developers put a dynamic map in any web page, by displaying map tiles and markers that can be loaded from any source. OpenLayers is completely free, and released under a BSD-style License. OpenLayers supports a wide range of map types, with new layers being added all the time. Currently, the module supports OSM, Google Maps, Yahoo Maps, Virtual Earth, TMS, WMS, CloudMade, and XYZ map.
Here you have an example of how we integrated the module on the Urbo.ro “Harta” page. We chose to integrate OSM, Google Maps and Google Satellite. Users can switch maps using the buttons in the top right:
Adulmec.ro is a big supporter of open technologies. We strive not only to build our own projects on these open technologies, like Drupal and Solr, but also to give something back to the community. We believe open technologies facilitate more innovation and accelerate the advancement of technology worldwide.