I recently attended one of the country’s biggest blogging conferences, the Visayas Blogging Summit 2011 (VBS 2011), held in SM Cebu. I have attended similar events like the iBlog5 (UP Diliman), Visayas Blogging Summit 2010 (SM Iloilo), WordCamp (Manila) and Cebu Blog Camp (Cebu City) but putting biases aside, I think VBS 2011 was, for me, the loudest and best.
I’ve gathered several ideas and conclusions based on what has actually happened during the event and here are some of those:
It’s been a long time since I talked about web hosting, domain and everything related to it. With the demise of my old niche blog (bryankarl.com, inactive), I totally stopped talking about these kind of stuff. But I’ll give it a try one more time.
I’ve had my ups and downs (more downs, I think) in the past with regards to web hosting. My first, Kinohost, really was the biggest problematic host I’ve encountered so far. I have had my share of communicating with the owner though and looks like he had his rough times, which also affected our blogs. I then moved to another host, and yeah, another problem. So I had to move again now this time in a stabler hosting service, my current one.
I am currently hosted in Hosting Services-USA-Taiwan-Philippines. Yeah, quite a long name we’ve got there. Fortunately, their service is quite good. I haven’t encountered blog downtime moments (none that I can remember of) and the customer service is speedy. They’re also affordable that’s why I chose them. Nobody actually recommended them to me; I just saw them in my search. They could not be as amazing as Web Hosting Hub, the Top 1 in website hosting in the Official Top 10 Website Hosting 2011 but they have satisfied my blog needs.
Update: After writing this post, I bumped into a memory_limit error with my blog’s Dashboard. Luckily, my blog host has a live chat feature. And it’s amazing! The guy from their end helped me and problem solved. 
After all, I only have a personal weblog — I don’t need much. However, just a few recommendation. If you run a community blog or a magazine-type with lots of contributors (especially showbiz blogs), then I guess you might not want to settle with less. Seek out from web hosting reviews so you’ll get the best for your website or weblog.
Check out this YouTube video by Volusion. It’s entitled How to Choose a Web Host. Watch and learn and try to assess if your current web hosting has the 6 qualities of a good web host. Mine, I say it passed.
More information in Web Hosting FAQ.
Share your web hosting experiences below too!
Last year, I was very much eager to nominate my favorite blogs in the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs writing project. I wrote my post in August 28 with the title Extraordinary Nominees for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2010. But this year is different. Aside from being a total deadliner (deadline is today), I was also less exposed to the new blogs that have just sprouted recently. That makes it difficult for me to choose my picks. After a few considerations, here are the vote-worthy blogs I have finally chosen. And to add a bit of variety, I grouped them by category.
Food
Being a food blogger is difficult and I never even dared took that path. Not all food blogs are good though. Only a very few will really catch your taste buds. And here are some of them.
1. CERTIFIED FOODIES
This month, my friends and I will be going to Baguio. As I search for Baguio’s ube jam on the net, I stumbled upon this blog. I read the pasalubong ideas (good and bad) post, the ube jam post and then I continued to some other recent ones. It was a good read. And this deserved this blog the #1 post on my list.
2. EAT’S TERRIFIC!
I thought it’s Kuya Orman’s personal blog but then it’s not. It’s a food blog and it’s full of good things!
Posted in Blogging
