vBulletin released its 4.0 Gold release and as they are (still) one of the most widely used softwares when it comes to forums, it has created a good amount of talk throughout many forums. Well, there clearly is mixed opinion regarding the release that came out today (and the Beta and RC versions before the Gold). I personally own multiple (maybe a little too many) vBulletin licenses and despite all having the capability to go 4.0, I have decided not to not play “early adopter” this time and see how the 4.0 release comes out. Like many other forum owners who have been extremely long clients/users of vBulletin (personally since 2002), I feel that 4.0 isn’t the vBulletin I used to know.
BloggersBB and a few smaller forums I run will certainly NOT be going 4.0, at least for the first few months. In the future, who knows, as support for the 3.8 series ending might force me to make the upgrade…
Why I’m Not Upgrading Anytime Soon
So I thought I might as well explain why I’m not upgrading anytime soon. I am not just jumping on the bandwagon of haters and I am certainly not simply dazzled by IP.Board’s latest version.
1. vBulletin Solutions Disappointed Me
What I mean by this is that the new team in charge, not Jelsoft, has disappointed big time for me. vBulletin had the huge edge over competitors like IP.Board, phpBB, and SMF because of not only their extensive features, but the smooth coding and the excellent support. After the change in ownership, a lot of the coders leaving led to not just a drop in support, but also a free-fall in the quality of the coding. Supposedly there are ~200 queries running with the Publishing Suite and the bugs are rushed to completion. vBulletin always stood strong for the “Big Boards” and I strongly believe that a good portion of it was because of the excellent coding. The state the 4.0 is at right now certainly will set off smokes for most forums.
2. Forced Pricing
I don’t mind paying for quality software, but I am sensitive when people force me to pay for certain products that I feel is not worth the price. At the current state of 4.0, I’m glad I didn’t jump on Internet Brand’s promotional pricing structure. Software prices should be based on the overall quality of the software and the support provided. I personally believe 4.0 is a step-down from the 3.8 (when comparing comparable stats and features) series and support is at most, as good as it used to be. I don’t understand an increase in prices when the software’s quality drops and the support for it stays the same.
3. vBulletin’s Release System
So the new pricing structure states that 4.0 publishers will, for a one-time fee, get all updates in the 4.0 branch. This means that you may have paid for a forum license that may last only 18 months, the current speculated date. Paying $195 for a forum software or $285 for the Publishing Suite isn’t a cheap solution for anyone and having to pay that every time for every major update is not cool at all. It’s not as if vBulletin 4.0 is a huge jump from the 3.8 or far superior to competing scripts.
4. Subsequent/Minor Release Schedule
I always believed coding should have some time constraints, bu when a deadline is set, it should be set with a very clear picture on how finished the product will be. The stability of the Gold release shows a sheer lack of scheduling sense and it just makes me wonder how big of a difference the two updates that the management team has set in January will bring to the software.
5. Others’ Reviews
vBulletin 4.0 just might not suit my tastes. However, if it is still excellent and performs, I will use it. IP.Board doesn’t exactly fit my style, but I would use it if I had a license and had a need to use it. The problem with vBulletin 4.0 though, is that it isn’t just me. Threads questioning the readiness of 4.0 and the reviews of 4.0 show that most people are disappointed with 4.0 See how it’s not just me?
Am I Never Upgrading? Am I Leaving vBulletin?
Certainly not. I still think that 3.8 is an extremely powerful, complete, and effective software that does what I require it to do for my communities. I will stick with using vBulletin for my communities until 3.8 becomes way too outdated or I just need support. I am considering the option of possibly using IP.Board, but as I grew up using vBulletin, I may consider purchasing a license maybe a year from this post.
Regarding upgrading to vBulletin 4.0, I’m definitely holding off. I’m going to see how the 4.01 and the 4.02 release comes out to be. If it looks like it has the potential to really outshine the 3.8 series, I’ll start looking into upgrading and see what modifications I have for the boards right now are available with 4.0. If nothing much changes, you can be sure to NOT see any of my communities running the 4 branch. Maybe 5, but probably not 4.
Are you a vBulletin-based community owner? If you are, are you planning on upgrading to 4.0? I’d like to hear your opinion as communities mean much to me and therefore, softwares are pretty important.
Are you a vBulletin-based community member? Did any of your communities recently upgrade to 4.0? I’d like to hear your opinions too regarding your end-user experience on 4.0 as I’m always looking to make my communities better for my members. 
I just updated ahnternet to WordPress 2.9 and everything seems to be working just fine. I think the biggest addition to this release is the built-in image editing ability.
Just did some testing with it and it isn’t Photoshop, but if you don’t have Photoshop on your computer, don’t want to turn it on, or just need some quick editing done for a simple upload on your blog, WP’s built-in capabilities should suit you just fine.
So I will admit. I have been a poor blogger in 2009. Less than 50 posts and many of the posts that I posted… they were all pretty bad. This year is quickly coming to a close, and I’m about to give this blog a big change and a lift from its dormancy. Get rid of some of those cobwebs in the WordPress admin dashboard and give some life to this thing.
2010 Changes
This coming year, at least for the first month, I’m going to test around what I can and cannot do with this blog. Currently, aside from this blog, I have school work to do (Engineer’s life is tough!), a personal blog I (seldom) post, a community to run, a soccer blog to maintain, and promotion to do for all my sites. Then I have that gaming community that I have been trying to start but never got around. I probably won’t touch that until Summer 2010, but what the heck, I’ll still mention it here. Not to forget, I also have a personal life to keep up with and running. I do have other small sites here and there, but those don’t take up nearly as much time as the ones I mentioned, so I’ll pass on those. Plus, those have been running fine anyways.
On ahnternet, the biggest change that you readers should see are obviously the increase in posts. So I’ve been really bad and have been posting crap. Well, that’s about too change. Expect from this blog at least two quality posts that should help you out on the topics I focus on in this blog: making money online, blogging, internet marketing, social networking, and community management.
Another thing you should notice is hopefully me checking out your blogs. I’m at the forefront of running a community for bloggers of all types. I might as well practice sharing tips and helping out on this blog as well as over at BloggersBB. What does this mean for you? As I don’t have every one of your blogs in the favorites, please make a comment and I’ll head over and return the favor.
So, let’s see how this goes with this year. I’m taking more classes than ever this coming quarter, so academically, I will be extremely busy. However, I still do want to keep my hobby going, so yeeeaaah!
BloggersBB will be launching on January 1, 2010 with $1000+ worth of prizes to handout to numerous winners! As some of you may know already, ahnternet will be serving as the official BloggersBB blog for the time being, as I can’t manage soo many blogs at once. 
Anyways, back to the pre-launch deal!
So, we’re going to be *officially* launching on the 1st day of the new decade. HOWEVER, the forums are actually open right now!
What does that mean?!
You can jump start on the contest now!
Head on over to the contest page and see how you can take part over 10 days before everyone else does!
Hey everyone. It’s been a while.
I’m currently in the process of setting up a blogging forum. More info to come starting December 12th!
To those who celebrate it, happy halloween!
Note that this is not a paid review post or some sort along that line. I was merely amazed by the creativity here and was compelled to write about it.
So I was doing my usual random surfing on the web when I saw this theme.
My initial reaction was, “Wait, is this a wrong screenshot?” Then I looked again and thought, “What an awesome theme!”
Let’s face it. Not everyone is a hardcore blogger. You might make a post or two here and there during the week. It is certainly not updated to really call it a blog or a face of you. However, you might use Twitter intensely to really draw your day out completely. Maybe it is some other social networking site like Facebook. Then, this is where this Visiting Card theme kicks in.
I only took a peek at the demo, but was instantly amazed by its potential power. Now, if you modified this page to your taste, wouldn’t it be an awesome online business card for you?
Just a thought. I rarely make posts like this, but I was just too dazzled by this theme, I really had to share it.
I’m sure all of you know that directory submission is like Online Marketing 101. No, let me take that back. Online Marketing 100. It doesn’t even deserve that extra 1 at the back. It’s so basic and all new webmasters should exploit this to initiate those search engine spiders to crawling all of your site.
Every day, I try to do about 10 submits to new directories that pop up here and there for more of the newer sites. This takes me at maximum, about 15 minutes, so I don’t have much problems with it. However, I also do buy manual directory submissions ranging from 100~5,000 submissions ranging across various PRs to keep the back links increasing.
Awkwardly though, just a few minutes ago, it struck me that maybe I was wasting a lot of time. After all, isn’t time = money? Let me explain to you why.
Assuming that you don’t have a quick routine that I use to get the sites submitted manually (you can ditch the auto way as that’s unethical in my opinion), the entire process can take quite a while depending on how many sites you have. Now, couldn’t you use that time in a better way to actually promoting your site aggressively through other means? If not, how about producing some content? Directory submissions, in my opinion, may just not be as great as it seem to be.
Most Directories Suck
I was a directory owner a few years ago, and I’ll be honest with you. Most directories suck because the owners aren’t exactly big promoters of their directories. Take a group of a random 100 directory owners. See how many of them consider their directories as their biggest projects. More than likely, not one will consider their directories as their biggest projects, considering the number of newborn directories out there.
Directories >= Link Farms?
I’m sure you know how link farms are just slapped by Google. Other search engines don’t like them. I don’t like them. You don’t like them. I don’t want this blog to be listed beside a real estate blog as much as that real estate blog doesn’t want to be listed beside mine. Why? The niches are completely different. Same thing with most directories these days.
How many times do you see a specialized directory accepting a certain niche? Not so often. Same with RSS directories, bidding directories–you name it! Most will have the “General” tag on them. Isn’t this just a nice way of organizing your link farms? Sure there are super quality general directories, but also see if they accept all sites. They don’t–they have some standard.
The Lifespan
How many times do we see random domain names used to build directories? Nearly all the time. Chances are, these directories built on random domain names are bound to have a short lifespan. Wouldn’t you be mad if you spent all day submitting to 500 directories. You check the next week and see that 100 of them just got deleted?
End of Ranting
I’ll stop my ranting here to separate my post now. I think I’ll write a Part 2 on this matter on finding some solutions for us helpless directory submitters. Whoo… this was a short post. Just blazed by it.
Anyways, let me know what you think. Are you just as upset as me on how this directory niche is headed towards?
So in addition to my post about how my web host was killing my content, I felt compelled to write a post on choosing the right web host.
Without a reliable web host, there really is no way you can run any website. It is the “house” of your site and it can make or break your site. So, let’s cut all this introduction and get straight to the points.
What are your requirements?
It is important to know what you need. Yes, web hosting companies these days do give plans like unmetered space and unmetered bandwidth with unlimited everything. Although it never hurts to have so much, the question is, do you really need all that? When you search for web hosts, you should always search for quality web hosts and thus, you want to find a host that is willing to give you what you need for an appropriate price, not a host that is willing to oversell. So, make a short note. How much resources (space, bandwidth, databases, etc.) do you need?
What is your budget?
Note that websites (or blogs) are not made in a month. You need to have the money to fund your hosting for at least a quarter. Sure it isn’t so hard to get a website making enough money to fund its hosting, but as you never know what can happen, I always believe that you should have at least three months’ (a quarter) amount of money to fund into your hosting account. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should order a quarterly package (as I explain about later below). However, what is important here is preparation. How much are you willing to spend per month? Multiply that by three and are you willing to invest that amount into your hosting?
What do others’ say?
Customer review is extremely important. Especially with recently established hosts, it is even more important. Make sure that you do your research on various sites. Google “your-web host review” and you should get ample amount of results, assuming that the hosting company has been around for at least a couple months. Make sure you read them all and make sure that it is a reliable company. Also, don’t fall into the traps of fake testimonials!
First Impressions
You know how people say that first impressions are extremely important? Well, you should apply the same thing when viewing web hosts. When you visit their site, how do you feel? Is it some cheap free homepage? Is it unique and professional? Often, serious web hosts will have seriously professional homepages.
Testing Support and Sales
Although you may not need support, you still want to make sure that they are there in case anything goes wrong. Especially with the economy not doing so well, many web hosts are changing ownership (like mine recently), and many are cutting the number of support and sales reps to save money. However, you need these people ready for you regardless of how much you may or may not need them at the moment. Some of the things you can do to make sure that your hosting company has the people are:
- What type of support options do they have? (eg. live chat, help desk, forums)
- Is it 24/7?
- How many representatives are available? (You don’t want one guy on one shift as then, you may need to wait in a loooong line)
- Try shooting them an email at random times, multiple times and see how they respond.
Always Monthly First!
Something you don’t want to fall into is the annual special trap. Unless this is a company like HostGator, which has been around for like ages, you really want to test the hosting company out first. The best way to doing so is going monthly first. I believe you can really get a taste of how the company is if you stick around for around two months. So, the first two months, pay monthly and see how they are. If they suck, you can always get out without losing more. If they are excellent, drop them, and then sign back up with them with their annual plan to receive any annual specials they have running for that month.
Not All Eggs in One Basket
Something you must always be cautious of is that not all web hosting companies are immortal. Yes, even my favorite, HostGator. My sites with the Gator have some downtime. I have some sites with ScarabWeb and they have downtimes too. All hosts will have some downtime that is unavoidable. Therefore, you don’t want to get a big hosting package and then host all your sites there. Get a couple to start with to make sure that you you at least have some sites online all the time.
Conclusion
Starting to get a decent idea on choosing a web host? I know this is like Building a Website 101, but hey, an extra article online never hurt for newcomers. Anyways, choosing web hosts can be an arduous task as there really isn’t that perfect web host. Below are some of my recommended hosts that I have been with, enjoyed, and can recommend.
Recommended
So it has really sucked this month for this blog. The hosting company that ahnternet is hosted on (not HostGator) decided to change ownership. Well, all those drafts and posts I had written vanished, appeared, vanished, appeared, and so on. Hence, I decided to go on a hiatus with all the sites hosted with this host.
As I value uptime and cannot afford all my sites to be down simultaneously, I spread my sites over multiple hosting companies. Unfortunately, this ownership change affected the productivity of ahnternet very heavily.
Within the next two days, I’ll be talking about choosing the right web host to prevent problems like this. As much as your site is important, your site being up is also very important. Hence, look out, as I’m sure it’ll help many of you guys (especially any on budget hosting) quite a lot!
Static is a teen blogger who runs the blog, 
