Month: April 2017

April 19, 2017

Hosting Related

Reading Time: 8 minutes

Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re a premier Canadian web hosting provider, and as such you can be certain we love anything related to the mobile communications world. You’d be hard pressed to find any newer-model smartphone and computer on the market today that doesn’t have a smart assistant preloaded and waiting on your every inquiry, Apple has Siri, Windows has Cortana, and then there’s the lesser known but equally useful Google Now. So how do they stack up against one another in our opinion? To the more casual observer or passive participant it may seem like Siri, Cortana, and the nameless Google Now assistant are all pretty much the same — and, to a great extent, they are. But they also have several tangible differences and in each case they’ve got at least one quirk, flaw or strength between them. So which one would be best for you? Of course, you’re not going to make a purchasing decision for your next smartphone based exclusively on the type of assistant it comes with, but it may be a prominent consideration. It’s not an easy question to answer, with the fact they’re so similar making it hard to compare them without digging deep into their capabilities. Let’s give it a try. Siri Siri has been one of the flagship features of iOS since the 2011 launch of iOS 5. It’s somewhat humble beginnings were with the basics, like weather forecasts and messaging, but it’s expanded in leaps and bounds since, and most notably it now supports third-party integration with MacOS Sierra and iOS 10. Indeed, Siri’s jokes and witty comebacks continue to be a hit, but the virtual assistant is becoming more and more capable as the years go by. These days you can ask it to call people, send messages, schedule meetings, play games, launch apps and games, answer questions, set reminders, and still provide those weather forecasts. Siri’s also very capable with understanding contextual queries, and with the MacOS Sierra and iOS 10 versions it relies a lot less on web results in choosing the response. Siri can also integrate with third-party apps and understand follow-up queries. This was a significant...

April 13, 2017

Hosting Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

If you live in the heart of a major metropolitan city, having a sports car that can do zero to 60 in less than 3 seconds would is great - but it’s certainly far from being a necessity (or even practical for that matter) because of the fact that you’ll almost never be able to actually put that performance capability to use. Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re city dwellers and some of the best Canadian web hosting providers around, but we certainly don’t drive Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Maseratis, or anything of the sort. What we do have for you though is genuine speed for your WordPress-built website, and that IS a necessity these days. Users’ expectations have expanded these days, and they expected a website to Load quickly, and Be responsive when scrolling through pages or enjoying multimedia content If a website doesn’t respond with sufficient speed, these users will move on. It’s that simple. It may not be ‘fair’ but that’s the way that it is. You may be left wondering about ways to increase your website speed, and you should do that for a pair of reasons. Not only does a lagging website risk losing visitors (and in some cases prospective customers) but more importantly… Google has stated unequivocally that the speed of a website will reflect that site’s rankings in SERPs (search engine results pages) Now that is a big deal, and no matter whether your website is e-commerce, personal, or whatever it may be. Right then, here’s 5 nearly-guaranteed ways to improve the speed of your website. Choose a Reliable and Reputable Web Hosting Provider Your proven web hosting provider in Canada must have solid and reliable hardware, and most particularly their servers. Researching your prospective host in line will almost certainly lead to at least one customer review that talks about their servers. But while we have the same powerful dedicated servers that nearly any good Canadian web hosting provider will have, but we also boast our ‘fast fiber’ network designed to deliver optimal operation time and high throughput and packet per second capability. Long story short, you should be demanding, and when you ask questions about...

April 4, 2017

Domain Related, Hosting Related

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Here at 4GoodHosting, we’re a reputable web hosting service provider in Canada and we like to think we’ve got our thumbs sufficiently on the pulse of what’s new in the digital marketing world too. The ‘stack’ we’re going to talk about today is all about computing and the new way in which cloud computing, in particular, has revolutionized the way people access and utilize resources made available through the internet. We always have tips for improving your online marketing presence, but this blog post is really more about some of the more notable developments in cloud computing as they pertain to business. The Cloud is a broad collection of services, and these days there’s plenty of options in regards to the way you can optimize them for the benefit of your company and organization. The stack is the broad range of services built on top of one another - thus the stack. Each one owes much of its stability and practicality to the one underneath it, as we’ll highlight shortly. Unparalleled Network Access Services make the grade as ‘Cloud’ worthy when they feature: On-demand self service - any time and anywhere you want it, sign up and receive service without delay Broad and uninhibited network access across varied devices (desktop, laptop, AND mobile) Extensive resource pooling Rapid elasticity - able to flex upwards and downwards in relation to demand surges and sags Measured service that is billed accordingly, and with transparency The Stack Itself Alright, picture a pyramid divided into 3 sections. The pointed top is SaaS (software as a service). The middle section is Paas (platform as a service) and the base is IaaS (infrastructure as a service). SaaS applications are intended for delivery to end users, and that delivery occurs immediately via the web (analogy - think passengers) PaaS encompasses all of the tools and services that make coding and deploying those services occur smoothly, reliably, and relatively understandably (analogy - think vehicles) IaaS is the groundwork - the hardware and software powering it all along. This can be servers, storage, networks, operating systems (analogy - think roadways) SaaS is software that’s deployed over the internet. To put...