Alas it's true - I'm in love with the web hosting company that "eats up the competition".

The Mr. and I design websites for a living (among other things). When asked "where should I host my website" I don't hesitate to recommend Hostgator. Of course we would never recommend any company to our clients that we hadn't tested thoroughly ourselves; we've put the shared-server hosting accounts with Hostgator to the test and been very happy with the outcome.

We began working mainly with CMS type sites back in early 2006 when Joomla forked from Mambo and that is when we decided to give Hostgator a try. Before 2006, The Mr. and I had several static sites that we either owned or managed for clients scattered across several different hosting companies -- The names of which escape me because they have all gone out of business in the years since we left them in the dust. We've dealt with all kinds of problems with these shoddy hosts to top it off -- You name it, we've dealt with it: downtime, file loss, hosts that don't keep software up to date, intrusion into one shared account via another, major security issues and very poor to non-existent customer service across the board.

Crappy hosts pissed me off so bad that I thought very seriously about getting out of managing client's websites all together.

So come 2006 we were toying around with a new Joomla install for a personal project and needed a place to host it. After some lengthy research I found that Hostgator offered what we needed at a decent price (actually I wondered if the price was too good to be true at first). I scoured forums and found some people bitching about Hostgator issues, but the issues I found seemed in many cases to be operator error (ID10T) and not security or downtime issues. I figured that in the worse case scenario I would sign up month to month and move the site elsewhere should they end up totally sucking - it was a personal site anyways, so it wasn't like we were testing out a clients site on a new host.

Once we signed up with Hostgator things went surprisingly smooth.

The first time I actually needed to contact their tech support was due to a cron job that was acting up with the above mentioned Joomla installation. When I started having a problem and realized I needed to contact support, the thoughts that ran through my head were anything but pleasant. Up until this time, I'd had nothing but horrible support experiences with the various other hosting companies I had dealt with. I bit the bullet and submitted a ticket via support@hostgator.com. Lo and behold, I got an email response within about 20 minutes (the email was even legible and written in English I could decipher without my craptastic email support decoder ring!). I explained the issue I was having and the tech support rep handling my ticket had the problem figured out within a couple of hours. I was pleasantly surprised, but the coolness didn't end there...

Soon after that experience I had an issue with my email and credit card. I needed to contact their support to get it straightened out, so I hit up the live chat feature. The CSR was very helpful and directed me to the correct department I needed. Got the my billing info all updated within the day and our site was set. For the next several months I monitored the website downtime using monitoring software and found that if the site went down it was down for such a small amount of time that I could never actually catch it while it was down. In a way, I was kind of (evilly) hoping to catch Hostgator slippin' because you see HostGator has a 99% uptime guarantee and apparently you can email them if your site was down for a period of time and get a refund...I couldn't comment on this feature however, because I have never been able to catch a site while it was down for longer than maybe a minute.

So fast forward over 3 years - We now manage about 20 separate hosting accounts through Hostgator for our clients.

I hate to admit it, but over the past 3 years I have probably contacted Hostgator's tech support department more than 50 times for various client accounts as well as my own. Some of the emails I sent were for really stupid (my bad) errors and some them were issues with the server/CMS, htaccess, php.ini configuration. Thankfully, none of which were major problems such as "HELP MY SITE'S BEEN HACKED!1!!!1" However, each time they were generally urgent requests and for each time I contacted them, I heard back within the hour; Lately the norm has been within about 15 minutes!

I have also used Hostgator's phone support on two separate occasions when I didn't feel like typing out a long detailed email to explain an issue I was having. YES I said phone support. That's right ... a host ... with real live ... English speaking people ... you can talk to (pause to catch my breath). In both cases their phone support was great. I got the matter resolved quickly, the tech support person was able to follow the progression of my tickets and pick up right where the email support left off.

Overall, in the past 3 plus years, I can't think of any negative experiences with Hostgator.

There was only one time (in my over 50 times of contacting them) that it was for a major glitch on their end. Apparently a server bit the dust mid-day on a client's website and her domain was showing another website. It was pretty hairball and I was highly pissed off when I called to ask what was going on. The tech support person assured me they knew about it and told me the problem would be fixed as soon as they could restore everything on another server. I started thinking the worst or something along the lines of: "Son of a ..... this is going to take all day. Great, I need to inform my client and she's going to go off on me --  I can hear it now. And if I get yelled at by my client, then Hostgator can rest assured they will hear from me - because I'm not taking sh*t on their behalf...". I think it was probably before I finished that thought when I refreshed the page and everything was working normally.

Needless to say, I can get a bit spastic on my client's behalf. It's truly because I care about them and the services we provide to them - it's for this reason that I have no problem recommending Hostgator to my clients.

HostGator Quick Review:

Purchased: My first site was hosted with them over 3 years ago - since then I have referred and manage about 20 websites on separate Hostgator shared hosting accounts.

Hostgator Benefits:

• Tech support available via the live chat, email and telephone
• Great prices
• Quick response time on support tickets
• 99% uptime guarantee - if their server bites it and your site goes down - get a free month
• 45 day guarantee - if you don't like it, get a refund
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Free domain and website transfer - spare yourself the trouble and let them do it, trust me on this, they get it done super fast
• Unlimited domains (on all but the $8.95 per month hatchling plan)
• Software is generally up to date - granted it's not usually the bleeding edge latest release of php , mysql etc. But the version is still secure and most compatible with all the php scripts available
• Up to date cPanel installs with Fantastico one click installs for popular php scripts such as WordPress, Joomla, etc.

Hostgator Drawbacks:

• Their logo is funny looking. (what? I had to put something here I guess)

The Mrs. gives Hostgator 5/5
You're looking at the reason I give Hostgator a 5/5 review - that's right, this site is hosted on Hostgator along with several other personal websites we own. They have great service and practically never any downtime. Give 'em a try if you don't believe me - I don't think it will be long before you too sing their praises.

They offer a some really awesome specials too for first time orders  - so check here before ordering!

Whoa. Great customer service and an awesome picture to boot. What more could I ask for?

Maybe a satellite receiver that pops it's own popcorn...? Ok - all kidding aside, I've been a customer of DirecTv (Or is it pronounced Direct TV?) ever since I purchased my Panasonic Plasma HDTV a couple of years ago. Before switching to DirecTv we were using an analog TV and had yet to experience HDTV in all its glory. When we finally broke down and decided to buy an HDTV TV we also wanted to get a new satellite system to go with it.

We headed over to Best Buy to make our TV purchase and actually scored a really good deal with DirecTv where we got the receivers for next to nothing and free installation. It took about 2 days for the installation technician to arrive to set everything up. We had already hung the TV on the wall and run some of the cables, but he made sure to check everything to be sure we connected everything right. Unfortunately the only place he could mount the satellite dish was on our patio cover, which sucked because he apparently didn't have the right bolts to secure it and we found that he left the ends of the huge screws exposed through the underside of our patio cover without placing any nuts on them or anything. I was aware that he did this and even though it did kind of irk me, I was too excited about having HDTV to give a crap at the time. (My husband could tell you how impatient I am, especially when it comes to new tech gadgets).

After about an hour of installation work and setting up receivers, it was time to flip the switch. (Maybe it was just me that heard chariots of fire playing in the background).

The DirecTv installation guy knew his stuff. As soon as he turned the equipment on, he switched the channel to one of my favorites - The Discovery Channel. And even though I am not into the animal shows so much, I still remember the moment he turned it on - I swore a damn antelope was going to jump out of the TV. Now, I wasn't around when color TV's were first introduced, but it must have been a similar experience to growing up with black and white TV and finally owning a color set. The picture quality was pretty awe inspiring to say the least.

We had our dish for about 2 weeks when we started seeing some picture quality issues on the HDTV channels. We called the customer service number late one night and got a real, English speaking customer service rep. She walked us through some menu items and made sure it wasn't a hardware issue. When I mentioned the fact that we live in an area prone to wind gusts, I was told that one of the downfalls with the new HDTV dishes is that they are pretty sensitive. I was a bit bummed out to hear that because I had our HD DVR set up to record several shows in HD -- So guess what? That meant the recordings were all jacked-up too.I did some searching on the internet and realized that I wasn't alone and there wasn't much I could do about it, so I decided that life goes on. When the wind picks up, I switch to the non-HD version of the channel. If I want to record something important, I also record the non HD version just to be safe.

We lived in the same house using the same DirecTv setup for about a year and a half when we needed to move to another city about 30 minutes away (Still in a windy area - unfortunately). We called DirecTv to tell them we were moving and they offered us something called the movers connection - Sweet!

Moving was ridiculously effortless with the Movers Connection program - seriously.

The movers connection program lets you leave your Direct TV dish at your old house and get a new one installed at your new place free, plus they hook you up with 3 months of HBO, Showtime and Starz for free (No Skinamax -- er I mean Cinemax though). Sounded too good to be true, but we we scheduled an install for the first few days after we moved anyway. The installation guy showed up at our new place on time and got to work surveying the house. It wasn't long before he told us that he had to drill through our roof because they were no longer able to place the satellite dish on the eave of houses. Right away I pictured huge bolts sticking out in the attic for someone to seriously hurt themselves on and wasn't too happy. The installation tech assured me he would make sure it was safe and so he did. He literally spent about 3 hours in the attic running wires and dropping cables through the walls for us (for free no less!).

When the install was finished, we signed off on it and were good to go - until about a week later.

About a week after having everything installed at the new place we started having some major problems - well major for me because none of the HD channels were coming in. I couldn't see How it's made in Hi Def - it was a major catastrophe! We got on the phone with DirecTv's customer service, once again late at night and once again got a real live, English speaking technician on the phone. She walked us through a bunch of menu commands and finally came to the conclusion that our year and a half old B Band converter had bit the dust. She got our address and assured us that she would get us a new one pronto. The next day (YES - I'm serious, the NEXT DAY) the fed-ex man was at our door with not one, but two new B Band converters (one for good measure I guess).

Right at that moment was when I decided that I must write this review...

I have been really happy with DirecTv over the past couple of years and have always been surprised at how good their customer service has been. I have called them on occasion for other minor issues not mentioned in the review, such as ordering a PPV movie or figuring out a billing quirk and they have always been willing to make things more than right. In fact the time I called about a billing quirk on their end, they admitted they goofed and sent me like 10 free PPV movie coupons!

There are definitely some companies who could learn from DirecTv in the customer service department - I'm just sayin'.

DirecTv Review:

Purchased: A little over 2 years ago

DirecTv Benefits:

• Great customer service
• Special offers that kick ass
• Really good picture quality (I would say great, but I live in a windy area which buffers the dish causing signal issues)
• Easy to navigate menus that are able to be scrolled through quickly without a huge lag in between menu screens
• Easy to program menus (in other words, lazy people like me don't have to read the instructions)

DirecTv Drawbacks:

• Signal loss in windy areas
• Package prices are a tad bit higher than the competition (maybe that's how they pay for good CSR's?)
• Remote is a little confusing (I still don't get the 4 color buttons with no label)

The Mrs. gives DirecTv 4/5
Great companies know that the customer is always right - DirecTv gets it. Any nit-picky issues I've had with them dissipate when I am taken care of as their customer. They are quick to resolve issues that arise and that's just good business. I would have given them a full 5/5 if it weren't for the the 1st installation tech leaving exposed bolts in my patio cover and the picture quality on windy days. The wind causing picture problems isn't something people with cable TV deal with, but it's something I live with as a satellite customer. Heck maybe they will have a way to fix this soon and I won't have anything at all to complain about

If you are in the market to purchase a DirecTv setup, don't forget to check for their current specials.

You can save a heap of money through one of their sign-up offers (at least I know I sure did!). Sometimes you can get even better specials with equipment through stores like Best Buy too, so check and compare before signing up!