Ning is the leading online platform for the world’s organizers, activists and influencers to create their own social network

One of our customers had created a social project on Ning.com, which allows its members to interact with one another and share pictures and songs. Things were going well, until she discovered that their yearly subscription fee for a premium package containing the features that she currently uses, now costs USD400 a year! Describing this as ‘horrible,’ she came to us seeking for a more feasible alternative.

We reviewed her current website and looked up similar cases. Some have suggested that users migrate from Ning.com to WordPress MU. But, we’ve tried WordPress MU in the past, and found the multi blog to be far too complicated.

Then, we explored the possibility of migrating from Ning.com to WordPress, but we found that WordPress may not be such a good idea either since the two platforms are so different.

Finally, we discovered that a Facebook Page would be the best alternative. We did the checks, informed our customer of our findings and the customer checked back with us to find out if an FB Page could support Video and MP3 sharing. We told her that all this can be done with Youtube’s embedded code and a Facebook application called MP3

Her response? “Thanks again for all your help! I really am very happy with the service I’ve received from 1.com.my”

You’re most welcome!

We tried to suggest several alternate domain named, but they were simply not what he wanted. Finally, one day, the domain name was released, so we quickly snapped it up and registered it. We then set up a Blog with this domain name.

The Blog, Our Different View (ODV) is another way for MACC to educate and enlighten the public about the truth regarding MACC from our own perspective.

Happy ending at last.

Ruby on rail web hosting by 1.com.my

Last night, our team managed to complete yet another web hosting setup within 2 hours. All this done at breakneck speed although it is after office hours and the next day is Labour Day.

Since the new domain name is .com, it can be registered and approved immediately and activated within a couple of hours. Then, we proceeded with the web hosting setup. The customer had chosen us because of the Ruby on Rail support on our Cloud platform.

This morning, we found this short but sweet message from the customer: “Cepatnya. Thank you very much Pin and the gang.” You’re most welcome!

Malaysian Anuar Manan creates history in Le Tour de Langkawi

Thankfully, with our Remote Office concept, it didn’t matter where we were. Upon receiving the request, the team was able to ascertain immediately that this was an email migration instead of new email setup. With that in mind, we knew we had to act fast, because usually, the customer must have encountered some serious email problems that had forced them to migrate.

Sneak peek of mobile office

First, we made a call and spoke to them about their problem. In this way, we wanted them to know that they weren’t dealing with a machine. Before that, we did some background checks to ensure that we had sufficient access to manage their email domains in order to estimate a completion time. The customer was relieved to hear that we could get it done within the same day, and we also informed them that our migration team was ready to continue working on their problem even on the weekend if necessary.

Guide to new email hosting

Geh was extremely prompt and helpful. He provided all the information we requested almost immediately. By 5.27pm, the email migration had been completed. A new email setup guide was prepared and sent to him to help him set up the new email system for all their email users.

Before we closed the case, however, our team made sure that the new Mail Exchange (MX) settings were propagated correctly. A call was made on Monday morning to make sure that everything was working well. Then, we helped the customer to remove their own email domain from their previous email service provider. If we didn’t do that, they’d encounter missing emails, which can be a big problem.

In response to our team’s quick action, Geh said, “Thanks for the info. Appreciate your fast reply.” Our team would like to thank you too Geh, for coming to us with your problem.

Malaysian Anuar Manan creates history in Le Tour de Langkawi

In a perfect world, your web hosting company might assume that every website consumes the same processing power, but this is not the case. Busy websites with heavy codes can take up more compute cycles. Compute Cycle (CC) provides a better way to measure how busy a website is, apart from its bandwidth and storage. It’s fair to say that those with higher CC’s should be charged more.

“Compute Cycles are a measurement of the processing time that your applications require, attained by calculating CPU processing time and accounting for the disk I/O consumed by your application’s operations”

Our standard web hosting comes with 10,000 CC a month, more than enough for most websites. So far, we’ve only had two customers who’ve exceeded their CCs. Instead of charging them (or penalising them), we work hand in hand with them to look into their site and find out if we can reduce the high CC problem. Since both of them are running busy Blogs, we introduced the WP-Cache, a plugin that serves content from the cache for faster access and reduced CC.

“XXX hosting company in Malaysia offers an unlimited hosting plan that comes with unlimited storage that allows you to host unlimited web sites”

The word ‘unlimited’ is catchy but doesn’t ring true. Many web hosting plans boast about supporting unlimited or certain number of add-on domains. In a nutshell, you can host a number of websites by subscribing only to one hosting package. Such a setup is messy and often turn the server unmanageable or abused.

We limit our hosting package to host only one website for each hosting package subscribed. For example, if our customer wish to setup a new sub-domain (eg, blog.xxx.com), they need to subscribe to a new web hosting package.

One of our friends who had subscribed to our web hosting service to host their Cradle award winning CRM project has subscribed to the additional hosting xxx.coconect.com. Each hosting is RM80 a year, though it doesn’t come with ‘unlimited add-on domain’ we are sure that is a better approach!

“We’d like to continue supporting you as we really like your service,” said one of the founder of Coconect.

Muhamad Aizam, the cute and macho IT veteran

Allow us to introduce you to Aizam, who outsourced us to host and support email facilities for the company he works for. They’ve quite a huge number of users, and our set up for them in February went smoothly. Now, their email users are using our services without any problems.

Q: Aizam, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your work?

I’ve been working in IT for more than 11 years. I used to work for IBM Malaysia (AS400) and CSA Malaysia ( KTM Komuter Project ), but now I’m with Sime Darby Eng ( Senior System Analyst ).This is my 10th year with them. I’m responsible for preparing bids for new projects (local and international), designing and ensuring that new and existing systems are in working order, and last but not least, to analyse current systems for enhancement, in accordance to the company’s growth and expectations.

Q: How did you find us and what made you choose to work with us?

I found 1.com.my via the Internet, after I Googled for a top email hosting service in Malaysia. I decided to choose 1.com.my due to your minimum downtime for the whole year, and the support you offer to your customers.

Q: Why did you opt to outsource an email host, rather than hosting it in-house?

I chose to outsource due to my project-based requirements, plus the cost to implement an in-house email host is much higher in comparison to outsourcing the solution.

Q: If you were to describe our email hosting services in one word, what would it be?

GREAT – Good, Readiness, Easy, Archive, Total Solution

Q: Okay, last question, which would you choose – iPhone or BlackBerry?

Blackberry :)

“Thanks Aizam! The interview really helped us to know more about you. Your words really motivate us and it’s made our team extremely excited! Rest assured, continued enhancement of services and support is at the top of our list of priorities, and it can’t be done without feedback and support from people like you!” said Pin, founder of 1.com.my

Download Pin’s Guide to Email Hosting

Many vendors walk in and out with solution that over promises many features, which may not solve customers’ problems. Some vendors would present themselves as consultants and start describing how the future of the web would be, not unlike fortune-tellers.

After several rounds of interviews and extensive studies into existing process flows, we managed to ‘diagnose’ the goals to revamp their website and the various measurable performance indexes of their website. Yet, managing the client’s expectations, which includes how the website would function, the cosmetic issues, the usability issues will be very crucial and needs to be addressed before the first line of programming code is written.

To better communicate with the clients, the client would need to look at a prototype. It could be sketches, storyboards or designs of the system interfaces. While presenting the prototypes to the clients, the clients would be able to assist us in providing any feedback that was missed out from the earlier stages of discussions. These feedback are then collected before the interface design is finalized. The process flows of the proposed revamped are also determined at this stage to make sure that the newly revamped site achieves the objectives.

Sketches of user interface prototypes from an actual discussion, image intentionally blurred to protect the privacy of our clients ;-)

If you are a web developer and is interested to see how we can add value to your existing services, let’s meet up!