List of Colocation Providers

I’ve been on a mission to find a great colocation setup and need a place to list all the companies I’ve had an interest in.

1. iweb.com – Toronto – 2 year plan for 1u comes out to only $51/month. Start with 5 ips, more free. Includes power & 500Gig bandwidth.
2. American Internet Services – 1uwas priced at $186/month. Damn. Enterprise class colo out of San Diego with an excellent network of providers. That price included a backup network drop which added $50 to the total bill. But it only comes with 1amp.
3. Nexcess – Michigan datacenter with clients using Magento. $50/U. Includes 2A power, 100Mbs uplink, and 500GB of bandwidth. Super good staff.
4. ISWest – Westlake Village (Los Angeles )$159/month for 1u.
5. Peer1 – $200/month – Octal Cab in Los Angeles. 5Amps, unlimited ips. This is the best deal i found i think.
6. Virtual Internet – $40/month – based in Utah – 120/208 volt power – 2 ips – 500GB
7. Pair Networks – $99/month for a tower includes 5amps! 2MBS, and 4 ips. This is a summer special and ends in August 2011.
8. Icelab Networks – $75/U (100MBS connection – includes 100 GB transfer, 1 power receptacle)  Denver – Level 3, Saavis, At&T, XO. Very Niiiice. Additional plugs $15
9. Syminet
10. Hostdime – $100/U * 3 mbps on a 100mbps Burstable port. 6 ips – Level3 / Global Crossing / Tinet / Savvis
11. PhoenixNAP
12. Velocity Networks – ~$120/U – Level3, Global Crossing, Abovenet. Including power and some base bandwidth. can’t remember how much.
13. Net2EZ
14. Multacom – $99/month. 1U. 1Mbit on 100Mbit port. Downtown LA – 707 Wilshire Blvd 4th Floor
15. InfoRelay – $200/U $200 setup fee – 1AMP, 10Mbs, 5 ips. – no thanks.
16. Colocation Services | Data Center Provider: Telehouse America provides carrier-neutral colocation and data center facilities and a complete range of managed IT services

Embedding a Topic Within Another Topic in AspDotNetStorefront

Question:

I have multiple pages on which I want a series of links. I’ve stored these links on a topic page for easy management. I want this series of links to appear on many topic pages and on the descriptions for categories and manufacturers. How do I do this?

Solution:

Create a .js file with the following and add it to your page. I added it to my master page.

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function include(url) // must be a fully qualified URL, I don't know why
{
if (url.indexOf("://") == -1) {
url = window.location.href.substring(0, location.href.lastIndexOf("/")) + url;
}
 
var xml = !window.XMLHttpRequest ? new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP') : new XMLHttpRequest;
xml.open('GET', url, false);
xml.send(null);
document.writeln(xml.responseText);
}

You can then call the file like this:

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<script language='JavaScript'>
// must be a fully qualified URL -- can be any type of file (html,jsp,asp,etc)
include("/t2-QuickLinks.aspx");
</script>

I put that directly in my topic page and the content was included inline. I specified t2- instead of t- because I don’t want a template on my topic page.

37 Things That Belong on a Product Page

Perhaps we should start by figuring out what the essentials are. Consider what happens when you don’t have the right information on the product page. Take shipping information, as a prime example of where things can go awry.

Product pages must include shipping details, yet many online retailers hide this information in the checkout. All this does is increase checkout abandonment, as visitors enter only to find out the shipping costs and options before promptly pressing the back button (to further consider the purchase, or possibly bail out due to an unpleasant surprise relating to outrageous shipping fees). When this happens the e-commerce manager assumes that there is a problem with checkout abandonment. Forms and processes may be redesigned, yet the problem is merely about the positioning of information. Redesigning the checkout on this basis is a waste of time, effort and money.

So what needs to be on the product page?

You’d be surprised at the sheer amount of options. There are too many elements to display in a concise, meaningful way. Some things carry more value than others, so there’s a series of decisions to be made along the lines of ‘What can we leave out?’.

There are obvious things that you absolutely must display, like price and availability. And there are less obvious things, which may (or may not) be disposable. The challenge is partly an informational one (what to place where and what to leave out?), partly a persuasive one (labels, colours, sizes?) and partly a design one (how to avoid clutter, insert space and guide the eye?).

Here’s a list of the various elements that I’d like to be able to display on my product pages. They’re perhaps not all necessary, and some may get in the way, but it strikes me that community-powered websites required more information and options than a pure e-commerce site.

ESSENTIALS

• Product title
• Images
• Add to cart button
• Price
• Availability
• Payment methods
• Shipping (delivered to / carrier options / fees / offers)
• Location
• Product description
• Product detail (materials used / dimensions / weight / cleaning / washing)
• Sizing / size guide
• Colour options
• Date added
• Product tags / categories

SELLER DETAILS

• Seller rating
• Seller followers
• Other items by this seller
• Contact seller
• Follow seller
• Seller testimonials
• Returns policy

RATINGS, REVIEWS, SHARING AND STORING

• Item ratings
• Item reviews (and / or comments)
• Item followers
• Rate item (‘love this’ / 1-5 stars, etc)
• Bookmarks / sharing / tweet this / send to a friend
• Add to wishlist (item / seller)

SOCIAL CREDIBILITY AND MERCHANDISING

• Who loves ya baby?
• People who liked this also liked…
• Cross-selling / up-selling (buy with X and save £££)

RICHER, DEEPER, SEXIER

• Video
• International pricing / currency converter (e.g £99, EU110, $165)
• Colour chart
• Trustmarks (security signs, testimonials)
• Number produced
• Product code
• Flag item (spam etc)
• Stats (views / fans / item follows / sales)

Chris Lake is Director of Innovation at Econsultancy, an entrepreneur and a long-term internet fiend. Follow him on Twitter or connect via Linkedin.