For a new site I recently decided to launch, I needed to find some web hosting. The site will be more of an experiment than a real thing, so I didn't want to throw too much money in it. But the thing is, I also feel the need for features most cheap hosting providers don't include in their basic offers. I just can't live without an SSH access, for instance. So, I started to search for the dream offer, and … w00t ! I think I found a kick ass deal.

What I bought :

• a domain name, registered for one year
• 4800 MB of disk storage (increasing each week by 40 Mo, that will sum up to 6880 MB in one year)
• 120 GB of monthly bandwidth (+ 1 GB each week)
• Unlimited number of domains or subdomains hosted on this account
• Unlimited MySQL db, email aliases, …
• Full Unix shell with SSH access ! And crontab ! Couldn't believe it till I was logged in :)
• Awesome support ! Sent one mail, got a replied 8 minutes later with a relevant answer
• Really complete control panel with more features and 1-click-install software than I'll ever need

How much is that you ask ? For all these things I've paid exactly … $23.88 for the whole year.

So, here comes now the blatant affiliate link which is truely worth it if you ask me : I've bought this account at DreamHost. This is their basic offer with the following trick : pay for one whole year at once (or two years) and enter "888" as a promotional code. They are celebrating their 8th birthday which is worth 80% off the bill (could be time limited, I'm not sure).

God I'm pleased and excited :-)

Le dernier tome d'Harry Potter est disponible en français depuis quelques jours. Evidemment il me le faut au prochain Noël. Ce post est un test pour voir si ma famille lit mon blog :Þ
J'ai respectivement et dans l'ordre adoré, très aimé, aimé, moyennement aimé et détesté les 5 premiers tomes, et même si j'avoue avoir du faire preuve d'une grande auto-persuasion pour réussir à finir le cinquième, j'ai quand même envie de persévérer. J'espère que le 6° sera mieux que son prédécesseur.

Le 4° Boobiethon (littéralement : le maraton des nichons) aura lieu le 1er octobre. La blogosphère contre le cancer de la poitrine : si ça c'est pas une occasion de s'amuser en étant branché et citoyen…
Read More

The talented Marco, a Pivot user, is looking more and more at the WordPress side of the world, and has recently released two anti-spam plugins that could be the invicible combo to defeat online casinos and other winnies enlargers.

• WP SpamQuizz adds a little simple question to comment fields, sort of an highly customisable accessible captcha
• WP Hardened Trackback is trickier : it generates on demand a unique trackback URL that will be valid for 15 minutes and for a single entry

This combination looks very promising, as well as being painless for users which is more important than all. I'm probably going to implement both here when I have some time.

Awesome stuff of the week : Netvibes.

Netvibes is one of those AJAXified customizable portals we are going to see more and more. Basically, it's a web page with dockable widgets that you can add, edit and customise. Add a post-it note, add RSS feeds from a website, your mailbox, your local stock exchange or a Google search. Make yourself at home. Then, make it your browser start page, and enjoy what they call Web 2.0 where online apps are getting more powerful than desktop programs :)

The user interface is pretty and neat, and best of all, it's fast. Importing my 96 feed OPML file was lightning fast, and reading feeds is actually faster than in any other web-based reader I've tried. Now I'm looking forward to seeing more customizable options : a custom wallpaper, a clock and a calendar to track events, something to import or create link lists from a bookmark file.

Anyway, I'm impressed. It rocks. I'm in love.

Updated: actually all these features, and more, are planned.

Every day, when I check what's new on Planet WordPress (an aggregator tracking about 80 sites about WordPress), I'm always impressed by the activity on wp-plugins.net, where new plugins pop up every single day.

What an active community, really. It's great. I love it.

Edit: Now offline.

WordPress blogs about WordPress (that I know of) had Planet WordPress. Maintenant, les blogs WordPress au sujet de WordPress (dont j'ai connaissance) ont Planète WordPress !

Read More