Positive Changes @ powerMonster

If you haven’t been by the site lately, you may not have noticed a lot of changes that have been happening here at powerMonster.

We have a new site design as well as new powerMonster hosting plans. We have replaced the dark powerMonster theme with a lighter, blue and off-white colored theme. We’ve also simplified our navigation to make it easier to find what you’re looking for.

Our hosting plans have also changed. We have readjusted the offerings and matched with some new price points for our entire line. We have had feedback that some of our line was confusing, so we have consolidated our blog and shared hosting into one simple package line called webMonster. With any of these plans, you may request that we install WordPress and our theme packages so that you may start a blog of any size.

Also, we are in the process of offering flash tutorials on our DirectAdmin control panel and WordPress. These will soon be available through the client panel (my.powermonster.net) via the KnowledgeBase.

Behind the scenes we are constantly looking at ways to improve upon our service to you! We’ve have upgraded our servers both in LA and in Dallas to more powerful machines. We are also looking at consolidating our control-panel offerings under one panel called DirectAdmin. We currently only have one cPanel server, but are looking to migrate it to a DirectAdmin server. Why? Basically, cPanel is a resource-hungry application and DirectAdmin can do the same thing as cPanel for less resources and with more security. This will allow us to dedicate more resources to our clients, assure a more secure server, and maintain the most up-to-date software on the server. We are quite happy with the DirectAdmin servers we already have, especially performance-wise, and are sure that those of you using cPanel, will also appreciate the speed boost as well as the zippiness with which DirectAdmin runs as compared to cPanel.

We’re Growing!

As we approach our one-year anniversary, powerMonster continues to grow and are happy to report that we are currently running in the black despite the economic situation here in the United States and many other parts of the world. Because we have upgraded to some more powerful servers, we have been able to consolidate some of our customers to a fewer number of servers, but continue to provide the high-level of service and uptime that you’ve come to expect from powerMonster and we continue to guarantee that ALL of our servers will remain undersold so that your sites can continue to grow without feeling the squeeze because of overloaded servers. If we continue to grow at the rate that we are, we will be adding another server and were looking at the GNAX data center in Atlanta, GA. If you have any opinions on this, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

powerMonster forums

We have reopened our forums (forums.powermonster.net). As this is a relatively new forum, it has not been populated with great posts and threads yet. But that’s where you, our customers, come in. Go ahead and register and post your questions, your ideas, your comments and concerns on the forum. It’s for you guys, so make it GREAT!

Affiliate Program and Free Months for Referrals!

You may not be aware that powerMonster has an affiliate program. We offer various kickbacks in the form of service credits for any referrals that purchase a powerMonster plan via one of your affiliate links. If you’re interested, you can sign up via the client panel. In addition to our affiliate program, we are also offering one free month for each new customer that gives us your name as the reason they became a powerMonster client.

Spread the Word!

We know that the best advertising is word-of-mouth from current customers. And who best to spread that word-of-mouth advertising than you, our current customers? If you have a blog, facebook, myspace, or twitter, we ask that you take the time to add an honest opinion of powerMonster and the service and value that we provide on your blog, facebook/myspace page, or twit about us. Or, if you’re so inclined, there are many forums, review sites, and other venus to post unbiased reviews of hosting companies and any honest review you give would be greatly appreciated. A few of the more popular places to post unbiased hosting reviews are webhostingstuff.com, hostjury.com, and webhostingtalk.com.

Thanks for your continued support of powerMonster!

Scott and the powerMonster team

Why? cPanel uses more resources than DirectAdmin, therefore reducing the available resources for our clients’ sites.

cPanel is a very resource intensive control panel that requires many other programs to run. Although, by doing this, it makes a server for the less-experienced easier to manage, it plays havoc on the server’s resources using up a minimum of 256MB of ram with its basic install.

By switching to DirectAdmin, we are able to customize the installations of our servers with more up-to-date software (without waiting for cPanel to catch up) or other software that is not compatible with cPanel. DirectAdmin is also a more secure panel in that it is updated more frequently, has fewer bugs, and isn’t tied directly to the operating system in the same way cPanel is. It also uses much fewer resources than cPanel which makes those resources available to our clients and their sites.

DirectAdmin has all the same features that cPanel has including a more robust script installer called Installatron. Installatron is Fantastico on steroids! It can not only import, update, and install popular scripts, it can also revert back to an older version. Installatron keeps its scripts more up-to-date than Fantastico, usually being only a day or two behind the official release from the software developers. DirectAdmin’s interface is more streamlined and efficient, causing a faster user experience. On top of all that, there are more webmail options by default with DirectAdmin than with cPanel. So if you’re used to using a particular webmail client, it’s there, but if you want to try something new, you can!

Although we are excited to migrate the last of our cPanel servers to DirectAdmin, we know that we nothing if it weren’t for you, our customers! 

So before move forward, we welcome your viewpoints on the matter. Please take the time to take the poll below and to add any comments expressing your opinions. Please feel free to openly express your views on the subject!

If we do decide to migrate the servers to DirectAdmin, rest assured, that we will take great care in migrating your sites over to the new control panel and get everything set up just the way it was.

Thanks for all your continued support!

Scott and the powerMonster team

This is an excellent opportunity for you to try out our excellent service and see why it’s different here!

Just use promo code monthfree during checkout.

If you’re purchasing either our mini or small webMonster plan (shared hosting), please use promo code 10percentoff.

Many of you have been with powerMonster for a while now and we ask that you take a few minutes to spread the word about us. Be it positive (we hope) or negative (hopefully not), we would appreciate the feedback and the exposure.

By spreading the word about powerMonster you will help us to grow and become more successful allowing us to add benefits and features to you as customers. Also, your unbiased feedback can truly help us improve our company from a customer standpoint.

There are many web communities that focus on unbiased reviews of hosting companies and a few of them are web hosting talk,hostjury, and web hosting stuff.

If you have a blog we ask that you might consider blogging about us or mentioning us in one of your posts.

If you like to twiter or stumble, feel free to twit us or stumble us.

Anything you do that can help us spread the word about powerMonster will be greatly appreciated.

If you’ve helped spread the word in any way, please let us know in the comments below. You may be justly rewarded!

the powerMonster team

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, powerMonster has just gone through a redesign.

We think this new look is a little lighter and more user-friendly.

We’re still working on updating the client area and order interface, but if you notice any bugs in the design, please let us know.

In the mean time, tell us what you think!

Scott and the powerMonster team

Thanks for your patience!

the powerMonster team

The have technicians on route and as of right now, there is no ETA.

I will keep you updated via this post as to the status of the outage.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and are doing our best to get the servers up and running asap!

the powerMonster team

Please review the changes. 

If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

the powerMonster team

Just wanted to let you know that powerMonster has updated its Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, Service Level Agreement, and Privacy Policy.

You may want to take a look.

powerMonster’s TOS/AUP/SLA/PP