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Network Solutions Review

Network Solutions is a company owned and operated by the hosting company Web.com. They offer a large number of services that are designed to meet the web hosting and design needs of customers who are building a website.

Services:

  • Domain registration services
  • Create your own website
  • Various web hosting solution
  • Personalized email services
  • Packages for ecommerce websites
  • SSL certificates
  • Online marketing tools and services
  • Web design and social marketing options

Pricing:

Network solutions pricing strategy varies depending on what you want. They offer three packages for Do it Yourself website design. For $2.95 per month, you will receive the web builder, a free domain name and professional design layouts to choose from. Increase that price to $3.95 monthly and include your business profile in search engines such as Yahoo, Google and Bing and receive SEO consultation with the Network Solutions team.

Want to build a legitimate online commerce store? For $4.95 per month you get everything listed, plus the ability to sell up to 500 products and accept credit cards, selling via a secure shopping cart directly from your website. If you would rather have a dedicated ecommerce website, the options start at $9.95 monthly. Network Solutions also offers the ability to build a mobile website quickly and easily, for as little as $5.99 per month. Uniquely, the mobile option comes with a 1 month free trial.

The Good:

In my opinion, Network Solutions seems to offer many of the features that organizations need to solidly host their websites.

The instant set-up tools are key for users who want to have a hosting account immediately without needing to wait for verifications, validations, and other pre-set-up requirements. I like the easy scalability from basic hosting to advanced or VPS hosting within the same provider.

The Not-So-Good:

However, Network Solutions is hardly a budget hosting provider – that low introductory cost per month for the basic hosting is only for the first month – after that, the annual rate starts at $119.50 ($9.95 per month).

Conclusion:

While Network Solutions may not be the best hosting solution, you may still check it out as it is a one stop solution for all your website setup needs.

>> Click Here to Visit Network Solutions Website

 

MacPaw CleanMyMac 3 Review

CleanMyMac 3 is as the new version of MacPaw’s catch-all utility to scan your Mac and remove gigabytes of assorted kerfuffle and gunk that builds up over time.

The Basics

In a nutshell, CleanMyMac scans your hard drive and displays files that can be safely deleted to free up disk space. This is ideal if you’re running low on space, especially if you’re using a MacBook Air with 128GB storage, or if you find that things are running a bit slow. It also helps to maintain your Mac over time by constantly identifying large and unnecessary files that can be removed and it completely removes apps from the system.

When you launch the app you’ll first see the Welcome screen and you’ll be prompted to scan your entire hard drive. There have been several improvements to the speed of scanning in CleanMyMac 3 and it now scans at a much faster rate when compared to the previous version. I’ve also found that it scans deeper in system areas and scans your hard drive in areas not available before, such as iTunes and Mail. Using CleanMyMac 3 for the first time the scan did take a little longer than normal to complete, but after a clean out any new scans now take significantly less time.

After the scan has finished it will identify safe files to delete and you can easily remove these with one click. I generally like to know what I’m deleting and prefer to browse the files beforehand so that I can add and remove files as required before deletion. I would always recommend that you take the time to do this in case you remove anything that you may need at a later date

Features

MacPaw has revamped the CleanMyMac structure and focused on three major areas: cleaning, maintenance, and monitoring.

Cleaning

  • Easily clean up unused files and folders by initiating an in-depth scan of your Mac with a single click.
  • Smart detection is used to determine which files are “safe” to delete and which need further approval as they may contain important files
  • Support for Mail, iTunes, Skype, and Photos apps that can detect and remove cached files, incomplete downloads, unneeded backups, and previous updates to clear up more space on your hard drive.

Maintenance

  • Dedicated application uninstaller will completely remove applications effortlessly without leaving any unnecessary files behind.
  • Speed up your Mac via spotlight reindexing, repairing disk permissions, and Mail search optimization.
  • Remove individual add-ons like widgets, extensions and plugins from one central panel
  • Curb your digital footprint both online and offline by deleting past browsing history, Skype conversations, Messages, downloads, recently open files and more.
  • Remove data permanently using the “Shredder” tool thus making sensitive information unretrievable with a third-party recovery software.

Monitoring & Health

  • Offer real-time health alerts as to your Mac’s health including memory use, storage limits, and hardware temperatures
  • View a well-organized report showcasing active storage, memory, battery, and processor performance.
  • Receive head-up notifications and actions in regards to system issues including a full trash bin, force quitting unresponsive apps and freeing up RAM.

License Pricing

MacPaw now offers CleanMyMac 3 as a free download for any prospective buyers as a means to test out the software with limited functionality.

I think it is a smart move by MacPaw as consumers now have the ability to get some hands-on experience testing out the software’s interface and feature-set prior to putting any of their money up.

This opportunity will help to determine whether the software is right for your needs and if you are capable of utilizing the software in regards to your technological experience.

When you are ready to upgrade, a standard single license for Clean My Mac 3 is priced at $39.95 just like its predecessor. For most, this price-point is within budget especially when you take into consideration the software’s variety of new features and increased depth of use.

Should you require more than one license, you have the option to purchase a discounted bundle of two licenses for $59.95 or five licenses for $89.95 thus saving $20 and $109.80, respectively.

One of my recommended apps

All in all I have found CleanMyMac 3 to be a solid upgrade with a fresh design, improved speed and several useful new features. If you’re looking for an app that can help clean out the junk and unwanted files from your Mac then I can highly recommend CleanMyMac 3. I would easily put this in my top 10 apps to have on your Mac as it’s something that I use on a regular basis and it provides real results.

>> Click Here to Visit MacPaw Website

MacKeeper

Another highly recommend software to clean your Mac is MacKeeper. With more than 13 million users and accolades from some of the major press outlets including Forbes, TechCrunch, and CNN, MacKeeper comes highly recommended.

>> Read Our Full Review Here

 

Bigcommerce Review

Bigcommerce is a solid cart with an impressive following of retailers. Almost 100.000 merchants in a wide assortment of niches have found success with Bigcommerce. Check out our full review to get the whole picture

Bigcommerce features

As discussed above the exact features you get with Bigcommerce depend on the plan you opt for, but basic features include:

  • the ability to sell a wide range of either physical or digital goods, in categories of your choosing and using shipping rates of your choosing
  • integration with Paypal and a wide range of payment gateways
  • full content management (CMS) functionality
  • good search engine optimisation (SEO) options – it’s very easy to add appropriate keywords to your products and site pages
  • integration with several e-newsletter services: Constant Contact, iContact, Mailchimp and Interspire
  • integration with Alibaba.com
  • automated reminder emails to people who abandoned their carts at checkout
  • discount coupons and gift vouchers as standard
  • the ability to tweak CSS and HTML as desired.

Web Design

Bigcommerce has hundreds of templates to choose from including many new additions. They can be used as they are, or can be modified via the WSYWIG editor, or for those that like to customize code-level, a full HTML editor. And Bigcommerce can also connect you with plenty of third-party designers that can make you a custom design for your eCommerce store. Check out the Bigcommerce design and developer network for more info. Needless to say, if you want a truly beautiful and unique site, consider options beyond just free templates.

Payment Processing

Depending on your plan, Bigcommerce offers easy integration with over 40 payment processors. This includes commonly trusted gateways like PayPal Express Checkout, authorize.net, Square, and Stripe. Paypal in particular has seen some advancements within Bigcommerce, including a more seamless payment experience.

Bigcommerce Pricing (updated Jan 2015)

Bigcommerce offers three plans plus enterprise solutions. If you pay for a year at a time you get a 10% discount.

The Silver Plan – $29.95/month

Limits:

  • 1.5% transaction fee depending on the payment gateway you choose
  • 3 Gb Storage
  • No Abandoned Cart Saver
  • No Loyalty Programs and customer segmentation
  • No eBay or Google Merchant integration

The Gold Plan – $79.95/month

This is the plan most people start with – you can always upgrade or downgrade later if you find you do not need everything included. Includes Unlimited storage and bandwidth, abandoned cart saver, customer loyalty groups and integration with eBay, Amazon and Google Merchant center.

The Platinum Plan – $199.95/month

This plan is the best if you are moving from another shopping cart to Bigcommerce because it includes data migration and expert setup & migration (which you would pay more than $600 for on the Gold or Silver plans). The Platinum Plan is also the only plan that allows for Google Trusted Store Datafeed Automation necessary to maintain Google Trusted Store certification.

Bigcommerce support

Bigcommerce support is pretty comprehensive. 24-hour phone support is available, along with live chat and email support (it is not clear what hours the live chat and email support is available however).

There is also a good range of video and text resources available, and a community forum.

Notable Stores Using Bigcommerce in 2015

Collette Dinnigan – International Fashion House – http://shop.collettedinnigan.com.au

Mason Jars – Full site built using Bigcommerce including blog and static pages – http://masonjars.com

Hoka One One – Leading long distance running shoe brand – http://shop.hokaoneone.com.au/

Fugoo – Not the poison fish. Simple marketing site built with Bigcommerce – http://www.fugoo.com/

Conclusion

In short, Bigcommerce is not without its wrinkles, but it has earned its position as a top contender in the crowded Shopping Cart scene. It has done so with its jam-packed feature list, solid SEO, and ease of use. The monthly price point is commensurate with their place in the market; it is very reasonable for the new/small online retailer, yet it is scalable enough to serve any growing business. And the recent plunge in per-swipe transaction fees in the Standard Plan is a particular advantage for startups seeking a powerful shopping cart that won’t undermine them right out of the gate. Bigcommerce absolutely earns every star that we can give it. I would recommend it for most businesses types, with only a few reservations in specific cases.

>> Click here to visit Bigcommerce website for more information