StartLogic Unbiased Review

Different from most hosting services, Startlogic uses vDeck and run their own auto-install central (instead of Fantastico or SimpleScripts). This had cause certain level of confusion to bloggers who are unfamiliar with web hosting.

Some frustrated bloggers even accused that upgrading WordPress in vDeck is impossible or complicated. That’s so not true and I’m going to show you how simple it is to upgrade your WordPress software. Assuming that you already had installed WordPress in Startlogic account and wish to upgrade it. All you need to do is login to your Startlogic account and get in “InstallCentral” under “Scripting and Addons”.

Next, get to the WordPress installation page. All your WP installation will be shown here. In case your WP is out dated (based on Startlogic’s database record), you’ll be given the option to upgrade your installation. Referring to the figure below, note that all you need to do is to click ‘Upgrade’ in the whole process and Startlogic’s advance InstallCentral will sort things out accordingly.

It’s recommended to backup your files (and WP settings) before upgrading for safety purpose but everything works out fine for me and I don’t need to roll back any old settings. As soon as the upgrading process is completed, a notification page will be shown in your Startlogic vDeck control panel page. In our example, I had just upgraded http://www.reviewstartlogic.com to WordPress version 2.7.

The entire upgrading process took less than 2 minutes to complete and it is very not-complicated at all. I guess people who are complaining about Startlogic’s InstallCentral are just uninformed and do not know the right way. Once you know the where and how, I’m sure you’ll find Startlogic InstallCentral is convenient to use.

Many hosting companies are not being transparent when it comes to server maintenance.

These irresponsible web hosts normally do not provide clear maintenance schedule (probably because they are not planning at all) and cause a lot of unnecessary hassles to their users. Startlogic, however, is not one of these hosting companies.

In fact I’m quite impressed with Startlogic maintenance system. They are very organized and had planned 4 months ahead in server maintenance.

Exchange Hosting servers were having routine maintenance between 11:00pm EST on Friday, February 6 and 7:00am EST on Saturday, February 7, 2009; while further maintenance is set on March 13, April 17, May 15, as well as June 12 of year 2009. Users like you and me get to schedule our work accordingly when the maintenance schedule is told clearly.

Anyhow, in case you were uninformed for the recent Exchange Hosting server maintenance, worry not. Any mail sent to you during the maintenance period will be stored and delivered once the maintenance is complete.

Unable to login your Startlogic hosting account? Don’t panic. It’s most probably because of Startlogic’s recent system security upgrades. According to the officials, the passwords was reset in order to ensure the security of Startlogic users. While Startlogic staffs told me that they had emailed the temporary password to all users, I received nothing all this while.

The solution to this problem is simple. All you need to do is visit StartLogic’s Password Tool and ask for a new password. And yes, the password change will certainly affect your FTP and other related web authoring program.

In case you are interested to read in details, here are the full official news released.

If You Are Unable To Access Your Account, Read This Notice

To ensure the security of all accounts hosted with StartLogic, we have changed all customer passwords; this is the password you use to log in to your control panel and to access your site via FTP (or FrontPage, or other Web authoring program).

Please check your e-mail; we have sent you a message with your temporary password. You can also retrieve your new, temporary, password via our Re-Send Password Tool.

Once you receive your temporary password, be sure to change it to a more memorable, but not easily guessable, password; you can change your password using the Change Password Tool >>

WHY DID YOU CHANGE MY PASSWORD?
To provide all of our customers with the most secure hosting environment possible, we changed account/FTP passwords. Unfortunately, online criminals are continuously developing new ways to exploit Web sites, and we are committed to taking every possible precaution to protect our customers.

We recognize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we regret this necessary security measure.

HOW OFTEN SHOULD MY PASSWORD BE CHANGED? / WHY CAN’T I USE MY OLD PASSWORD?
We recommend that you change your password every 90 days or so. Many people use the same password for several different things, and the longer you go without changing it (and the more places you use it), the greater the risk.

We will not force you to change your password every 90 days, but we strongly encourage you to do so yourself.

WHY DO I NEED A STRONG PASSWORD?
Strong passwords are far more effective at keeping your account secure than simple, every-day words (or dates, etc.). Learn more about strong passwords.

Most StartLogic users are not aware that the hosting company offer bunch of handy web tools and scripting references. In case you are one of them, check out “CGI and Scripted Language Support” when you logged into StartLogic control panel (vDeck).

Click-Through Tracker

One of my favorite tools on the list is Click-Through Tracker. Using Click-Through Tracker, you get to check how traffic flows through your site.

To start tracking your site click-thru, you’ll need to first create a tracking URL. In the Add a URL section:

1. Enter the URL you want to track.
2. Enter the name of the link.
3. Click Add URL.
4. Copy and Paste the tracking code in your web page to track the click throughs.

Sample of the tracking code.

Reporting on Click-Through Tracker

In the URLs Being Tracked section:

• Count – Number of clicks to the URL
• Reset – Click on the Reset link if you want to reset the count of the tracking URL
• Remove – Click on the Remove link to delete the tracking URL to remove the tracking code from your web page

As mentioned in my previous post, Startlogic is one of the very few web hosting that offers vDeck as their hosting control panel.

Users who are unfamiliar with vDeck are advised to take the startlogic product tour or visit the startlogic vdeck demo login first. For your instant guides, here is how vDeck (in StartLogic) front page looks like this:

Specifications for StartLogic vDeck.

• Platform Type: Debian
• MySQL Version: 5.0.45
• Perl Version: 5.8.8
• PHP Version: 4.4.7
• Path to SendMail: /usr/sbin/sendmail
• Path to Perl: /usr/bin/perl
• Path to PHP: /usr/local/bin/php