Until October 2009, I was a GoDaddy Partner / Wild West Domains Reseller, and although I made some money by selling their hundreds and thousands of unneeded services, I had a very hard time pushing a product which I myself had serious doubts about.

Over the 3 years that I’ve been selling Wild West or GoDaddy Services, I tried many different hosts, and I recommended GoDaddy hosting to many small businesses, because for a website that doesn’t really drive traffic, GoDaddy pricing really isn’t all that bad.  However, I’ve never been too convinced about their hosting services and some of the functionality that comes along with it and today, I will give you the inside story, based purely on experience, as to why you should not use GoDaddy for hosting a website if you plan to build a reputable website.

So why haven’t I been comfortable selling GoDaddy Hosting?  Well, put simply, because it just sucks.  It fails terribly when it comes to speed, reliability and user friendliness, and if you ever have to depend on their customer service, well, you may have to ask Jesus to intervene, because GoDaddy or Wild West Domains Customer service is really, really lost.  So lost, in fact, that they do need a Messiah for enlightenment.

Hosting with GoDaddy?  Better Make Time…

Let’s put it this way: access to the GoDaddy Hosting Panel was so slow that at times I could brew a cup of good old Spiced Indian Tea before the page would load.  It’s one thing to have the front end run slow, but to log in, create email addresses, or use their file manager, or create databases with their custom interface was the most painful experience I have ever had as a web designer.  In addition, if you ever had to log on to the customized phpMyAdmin interface to access the MySQL Databases, well, you’d have to go make some more tea.  Run time between queries with phpMyAdmin is very slow, and it makes for an over all pathetic experience as a webmaster.

Now, when you’re running the front end, it’s just as bad.  I switched to several different packages as a reseller: from VPS Hosting to Semi Dedicated to Economy to Deluxe.  They all run at stone-age speeds, and the front end experience is so bad, especially if you’re querying a database, that the website may occasionally time out.  That’s bad news for those of us who wanted to do testing on the server, because oh my, we wasted some mighty precious time.  In any case, it made for a bad user experience, especially if you’re running an ecommerce site, as no user wants to wait 3 minutes for the next window to load.  AJAX could act as saving grace, but the minute your AJAX application would query your sever, well, you’re at GoDaddy’s mercy; and let me tell you, they really are running their hosting service like they’re in the Wild Wild West.

One of the reasons the database access is so painfully slow is that it sits behind an SSL connection.  This is a rather silly move, as most successful hosts don’t employ it simply because it can drastically slow down the performance, of, say, a massive wordpress blog that could be pulling along the lines of 70 queries a page. 

70 MySQL Queries, you say?

With GoDaddy, they claim to be able to monitor the simultaneous number of connections to the MySQL Database and the simultaneous number of active visitors (whatever in the hell that means) on the website.  Now, GoDaddy staff isn’t clear on this, but apparently, if you have more than 50 consecutive MySQL Connectinos or 50 active users, well,  you’re fucked.  You’ll get a 503 site temporarily down error, and it can last for over an hour, because apparently, you have 50 active users who are consecutively glued to the MySQL Database.  How awesome is that?  And yet, neither google analytics or extreme tracking could detect more than 1500 pageviews in a day @ that point.  But these daddy goners had their own agenda.  According to some of the intellects at Wild West customer support, the number of open MySQL DB connections or the number of consecutive visitors would change based on which package you had, where as some claimed to have no knowledge of any such thing.  But nobody really knew what triggered this 503 error.  Apparently, as it turns out, all the staff needs maintenance.

FTP Access, you say?

This one really pissed me off.  No more than 2 simultaneous FTP connections, and no FTP connections lasts more than a 120 seconds.  So, if you’re testing on the server, you’re fucked!  And if you’re hosting multiple sites on the account, you’re penetrated twice because more than one webmaster can’t upload files to the FTP server.  That’s just bad; really, really bad.

Email?

Well, the folks over at GoDaddy may have developed their own email interface, but they still don’t have control over spam.  Either that, or they’ve got too much.  While I was at Wild West, I had several clients complain about their clients complain about how their emails would net get delivered, and the folks over in Scottsdale, Arizona really had it out for everyone.  At times they’ll block hotmail email, even if originates from a valid SPF policy domain, and if you ever emailed them, they were just about as useful as, well, useless.  Besides, if you didn’t pay extra money, you only got 10 MB per email inbox!  Hello!  Free email comes with 2 GB now.  I know you guys are from the same state as McCain, but please keep up with what’s happening!!

Installing Applications

If you’re buying a third party software like an eCommerce Solution or blog etc., please let the party you’re buying from know you’re using GoDaddy, Wild West or Secure Server services, because for so called ’security’ reasons, their settings are all screwed up. For instance, with several ecommerce providers, you’ll have to point to a specific URL to be able to use the curl() function in php with GoDaddy & Co., and it can be very frustrating if you’re new to this stuff and don’t know that your host is the one that’s been screwing you over for hours while you kept thinking your code was all screwed up.  

Worst of all things with GoDaddy is the overall experience if you are a professional.  Just like Sage has mesmerized the UK with it’s marketing and taken over as the defacto accounting software despite being the worst accounting package on the market, GoDaddy with Wild West has marketed itself extremely well, with thousands of affiliates, to the point where they can easily trap the newbie consumer with absolutely low quality service.  Well, I’ll be having no more ofana part to play in  that crime.

If you’re a starter, go with GoDaddy.  If you want good, reliable hosting that works, go for cluster based hosting, and please don’t go with Servage.  I’ve already cussed them out on this website a couple of years ago.  I have finally settled with IMountain.com Solar powered Hosting, and they’re not paying me to write this, which is why there’s no link to them in this post.  I’ve been using iMountain for a few months now, and I can tell you that I’ve been pleased with their speed, FTP, customer service, etc. etc.  They’re not about giving you fancy marketing stuff or spending too much time writing their own cluttered interface.  They’re using respected software in the hosting industry to run their service, and it comes with great speed.  It’s not the cheapest hosting you’ll find, but it is definitely worth the money.

In about 4 months, I’ve only had downtime for a couple of hours one day, and this is the day it took a couple of hours for me to get a response out of them.  But as it turns out, the problem was that someone had a launched a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on one of the servers, and they were busy trying to counter it.  For those of you who’re not familiar with DDoS, it’s somewhat equivalent in cyberspace to what Israel is currently doing to Palestine; you can hardly blame them for fighting the terrorist off before responding, eh?

But that’s IMountain.com.  With GoDaddy and Wild West Domains, I’ve never been able to figure out why I got a 503 error three times a week!

Here are the latest download keys for hp QuickPlay.

Use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit the above link to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys provided below.  Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it. Please note that keys are renewed every 10 days so if they are expired, be patient.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP:  70eebe5bfa2edbe36bc726356a34aa14

hp QuickPlay Direct 1.0 (runs on a linux partition)[NRG file, use Daemon Tools to mount]:  ad8ee85a6248fb8239ec95772602ac37

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP:  877656e31cee70530063f55f9cca658b

hp QuickPlay TV Play:  b76831d30a13979fadc222f302e5c435

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar):   f3ba342c838ba876b387c8fca17efce1

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

Happy QuickPlaying!

Okay, Consider this.

Asifism.com is under new management.  Under our so called acquisition, hp QuickPlay downloads and support will still be offered on Asifism.com, and you will still occasionally get your Accounting and Finance Articles, coupled with answers to US Deportation issues that surface.

What we do, however, now have authority over, is the other content that goes on Asifism.com.  We will be using this area of the website (this large light gray section to the left in case you’re wondering) for some literary genius, or what others may consider literary babble.

From now on, we really don’t care what you think; this website is about what we think.  The web site will contain wondrous knowledge and opinions of some of us great writers and awesome folks, and if you disagree with us, you are, well, plain wrong.

There will be rumbling, there will be mumbling.  There will be complaining, there will be whining, there will be opinion-stating and there will be opinionating.  We will make fun of people and we will sympathize with people.  We will use abusive language (where feasible, of course) and if you think we shouldn’t use abusive language, well, you should reconsider.  There will be name calling and there will be praise (occassionally).  There will be lots of intelligent, president-like decision making on this website, so please bring your intellect and leave the sentimental, emotional, satirical, cynical, and sadistic comments to us.

Oh, and yes, QuickPlay keys are posted once every 10 days, so pay attention to the last QuickPlay post!

One last thing, we’re awesome!  So OUR opinions ARE right.

Here are the download keys for hp QuickPlay.

Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP:  c684a16c0e77f2496edaaf0a336b5dfb

hp QuickPlay Direct 1.0 (runs on a linux partition)[NRG file, use Daemon Tools to mount]:  cd6e33a25dc8dca63d497edda1a95e1b

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP: ae005bbc56366a3a6a13b73b68d644b1

hp QuickPlay TV Play:  b8a35c5d12b709d9726fa79543f4fa0c

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar): c3194656eb20e4397d79487ce0ef1118

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

In a diverse city like London, you would think that the media would be smart enough to know that it’s political, racial and religious connotations have quite an effect on its readers.  Given the useful content in a newspaper like the Metro, The London Paper or London Lite anyway, it is very surprising to see anything of substance at all, if you’re lucky enough to come across some piece of news that doesn’t deal with a celebrity’s life.  Of course, the fact that millions of Londoners are so engrossed in such a pittiful waste of time reflects on the quality of audience, and keeping that in mind, the newspapers should take special responsibility for what they publish, since they may be the largest party to blame for spreading widespread incompetence in London.

That said, in the Monday, December 15th edition of Metro Newspaper, the company showed signs of serious religious discrimination when it printed news about the Bengali-British doctor Humayra Abedin had been held captive by her parents.  But what was interesting was that the writers felt the need to highlight that the her parents were Muslim on the front page.  The paper explicitly stated that she was held captive by her ‘Muslim’ parents.  What in the world would possess newspapers to publish derogatory content like that on the front page?  When you read that sentence, what rung in your head was ‘bloody Muslims, up to their tricks again.’  Now, I’ll be the first person to do some Muslim bashing, largely because many Muslims deserve.  But I’m a Muslim, and I speak from first hand experience.  The Metro need not write in such negative tunes about Islam or Muslims, because that simply does not promote a harmonious atmosphere in a city London.

Their next, stupid, yet more deviant act was mention the phrase “Pakistan terror plots” or something to that effect at the bottom right hand side of the page in bold print.  What the hell was that about?  I don’t see them mentioning any other news in bold print on the front page at the bottom; but hey, promote hatred against Pakis?  Once again, I have a few Pakistan bashing articles on this site, but I speak from experience, while the newspaper is promoting and suggesting that Pakistan plots terrorst attacks.  That’s like asking for trouble, because when you keep saying that somebody is a terrorist again and again, guess what, you leave them no option but to behave like one.

It was extremely cheeky and discriminatory of Metro point out Muslim and Pakistani faults on the first page to a crowd that they target in a city like London. The newspaper, even if it is a trash newspaper, needs to assume more responsibility and try not to say things that could have negative racial or religious implications.

What reflects on the paper’s discriminatory behaviour is the fact that I’ve never seen them mention that Robert Mugabe is a devout Christian, thereby implying how he is a prime example of derogatory (that seems like my new favourite word today) Christiandom.  But of course, all the self exploding toads are Muslim, as are the parents who keep their children captive.

Shame, Metro.

Several of us, including myself, at some point, had decided to make the leap from being employed to going self employed. I, myself, had bought into the whole concept of being your own boss, working your own hours, and marking and measuring one’s own success. Indeed, having your own business, generating your own income, choosing your clients and the people you work with are all big pros of being self employed. In fact, having everything in a business work the way you want it to work is fantastic! What else? You get to have a fancy business card that says Managing Director or Chief Executive Officer, and you stick your neck out and talk to everyone like you own the world. That’s all great, and the feeling of success if you thrive at being self employed is unmatched, but what are the odds that you will succeed?

Let’s be honest; odds are a big part of this whole deal. However, that is not all there is to it. What I want to do in these sets of “Running your own business” articles is to tell you part of what it will take to make the shift from becoming employed to becoming self-employed. What that means in English, for those of us who don’t like fancy corporate talk, is that I will try and outline what it will take you to go from being someone’s bitch to becoming your own boss.

Let’s get the assumptions out of the way first. You have an idea, and you’ve done your market research. If you haven’t, look for any book that tells you on what research you need to do to get your business off the floor. Market research is critical, as is good marketing. But what you need to keep in mind is that having a good product / service and a good marketing strategy is not all you need for your business to succeed. These are your basic requirements. No product / service = no business = no money = keep the job = stay in bitch mode.

So, what do you need to execute your own marketing strategy, sell your product or service, perform, and walk away with or retain a happy customer and a big cheque (or check if you’re in the US)?

The Three Ds of Entrepreneurship

Drive

Drive. Drive. Drive. By the way, that’s just ONE of the 3 Ds spelled out 3 times. Yes, you need drive. The drive to succeed, to sell, to perform, to win, to dominate and to not be somebody else’s bitch. What is important here is for you to have the mind set to break out of taking orders from someone else. That was the reason I chose to become self employed. I knew I had the skill set. I knew I had a unique deliverable, even if my service was competing with others out there, and I knew I had a decent marketing strategy. But above all of that, I had the drive to do business. The drive to be better than my former co-workers, and the drive to make it happen. Unless you cannoy work 16 hours a day 5 days a week and survive on 4 hours of sleep every night, going back to a job should not be an option. Business is going to succeed if you go all in.

For a more graphic explanation, think of driving only ONE car at a time. You can’t drive two, and if you try to drive two, you will wreck both. There are few who can handle both a job and a business, and unless you are that hardworking, I suggest you stick to one thing, and give your whole hearted attention to driving that one vehicle, which, in this case, would be your business.

Dedication

Remember how you sometimes had nothing to do at work and you went around chatting to all the different people at work, browsing the web, looking up old friends on Facebook and waiting for that clock to get to 5 pm so you can get up and go home? Well, those days are over. With a business, with an entrepreneur, with the drive you need to succeed, the clock does not tick from 9 to 5. It’s more a case of 9 AND 5. You have to get the job done if you want to get the money: it’s just that simple. This means working many extra hours even if you undersold yourself, delivering an excellent end product because you are the boss and no will be around to check your work), and not wasting any time doing silly things you did on the job. You must dedicate yourself, your attention and your energy to your business. If you aren’t dedicated, it becomes extremely difficult to manage your time (especially if you’re working from home), deliver a customer satisfying product, or resisting the temptation to log into MSN and Yahoo Messenger and chat up your old friends. You must re-arrange your priorities and dedicate a specific number of hours to your business DAILY, or you will never get around to actually doing the business.

Determination

This is probably the D that most startup and small business owners struggle with. You have to be totally and utterly determined to succeed, or you simply won’t. Get used to hearing know and listening to negativity. The odds are against you, but keep in mind that knowing that only puts you in a position to be better prepared for these odds. It’s not easy running your own business, and many people struggle with how difficult it is to get things done, primarily because as a small business owner you are dependent on other people. But the trick is to keep plugging away. If you are determined to succeed, you will eventually make it happen.

Ultimately, determination is about mindset. For someone who is determined, something that goes wrong is one failed attempt at doing something. For another person, the same thing going wrong could mean loss of hope, and that’s the one thing you cannot have as a small business owner: loss of hope. Stay focused, stay determined, stay on track and make sure that you are persistent and remind yourself of how determined, dedicated, and driven you are to succeed and get the job done.

Stay tuned for more small business and entrepreneurship articles.

Here are the download keys for hp QuickPlay.

Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP:  bf9f6f15b4a7957a144db20fbdba8704

hp QuickPlay Direct 1.0 (runs on a linux partition)[NRG file, use Daemon Tools to mount]:  969c19732b628d73bea9115f83457d9c

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP:  fc3b0e3621bb5e44669f4f865a97d0a2

hp QuickPlay TV Play:  86245eea5672bc9a7ccfbc3d2146679f

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar):  cc9f991eb13e74d6f994c1209a5b0e8b

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.

Well, if I was to be concise as I usually am in matters of business, I’d say because they suck.  Bad service, zero customer service and  terrible customer support make for a recipe for an airline that will crash: Qatar Airways, the worlds only fake star airline.

Well, it is typical of the Arab world, isn’t it.  Tie that in with the low life typical customer service staff in London, and you have the ideal combination that hell will possibly comprise of: Arab business mentality coupled with British competence; God help us.  That’s right, I’m racist.  Get over it.

So, what is wrong with Qatar Airways?  Let’s start here:

• Qatar airways will charge you upto GBP 800 extra for wanting to stay over in Doha, Qatar if that’s where the aeroplane stops.  That’s right.  These low life single digit IQ camel riding airline running Islam insulting scumbags will charge you extra money to increase the tourism to Doha, which apparently the Royal family there is trying excessively hard to promote.  well, there you go.  Qatar Airways, a fine example of communication engineering between owner and management; a prime example of efficient business management by Arabs.

• Qatar Airways staff in London / Manchester is, well, like almost any other similar business, fucking stupid.  I talked to some probably stupid frustrated woman  who, when asked why the fuck she was being such a dumb bitch had absolutely no answer.  Well how could she; she couldn’t give me her name when I asked her for it. Dumb bitch.

• Qatar Airways staff lies.  Flat out.  Another classic example of Arab owned business with British style customer service.  These booboo monkeys will only give you an 0870 number to call for bookings and reservations, and they will deliberately make you hold.  I think it is because these low life camel riding sand sluts of customer service or bookings and reservation agents get commission by the minute.  Both the dumb fuck dude and the stupid bitch woman had the audacity to tell me that I was mistaken if I thought that there is no 02 or 01 for Qatar fucking dumpways in the UK.  Well, there are about 7 such numbers.  And for those of you who want them, here they are:
  London:  020 73992566 / 67 / 68 / 69 / 70 / 72 / 77,  Manchester: 0161 8385399

• Lastly, these Islamic insulting fundamentalist promoting dishonest infidels have robbed me of 400 sterling.  What can I say?

I hope Qatar Airways crashes as a business, and I honestly pray that their scumbag employees, well, there is a reason why they will stay in the job of answering a phone all their lives, eh?

Now, I feel better.  If you don’t like this post, well, tough fucking shit; and if you’re from Qatar Airways, well, even more tough.

I want to add that no disrespect is meant to any Arabs here. I do have great respect for many Arabs in general, but I stand by my comments about the Qatar Airways, the way it is run and their entire attitude in general. I would rather pay an extra £100 and fly emirates rather than go with Qatar Air. Maybe it’s just my luck, but the comments here make it clear that others have had similar experiences. After all, my comments about business culture in the Arab world were based on experiences in Dubai. Being in Britain doesn’t help either. Now, if you’re from Oman or Kuwait, I will have good things to say, because there’s a world of difference even between Arab countries and the people that come from there.

Here are the download keys for hp QuickPlay.

Please, use the instructions provided on http://www.asifism.com/installing-hp-quickplay-on-your-laptopnotebook-vista-xp/ for installing QuickPlay Direct before posting questions and queries already answered. Please also visit this page to see HOW TO get the latest QuickPlay Download keys if the keys on this post do not work.

To download QuickPlay, visit http://downloads.asifism.com and use one of the following appropriate keys. Also, DO USE the download of Winrar provided to extract the zipped version of QuickPlay Direct (HPQPDP.rar), otherwise you may get errors while trying to extract it.

hp QuickPlay Direct 2.3 for Windows Vista & XP: 061e111a8d473375eeb28a15e074a167

hp QuickPlay Direct 1.0 (runs on a linux partition)[NRG file, use Daemon Tools to mount]: 4a2905efef5d358187f8b209b649dc59

hp QuickPlay for Windows Vista & XP: 2f2a547cee8c914db8870823fbf4fb4d

hp QuickPlay TV Play: ffef96c300927baf4a44c1bf130260d3

Winrar 3.6.2 (please use to extract hpqpdp.rar): 65910d23fb09561ee8edd2f92113e456

For those people who get the QuickPlay Enabled or QuickPlay authorized machine only error while installing, please try the following:

Using Notepad, make a file and save as .reg with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\QPFlag]
“QPFlag”=dword:00000003
“@=”=””

Then add to the registry by double clicking this file afte you’ved saved it install QuickPlay.