Ladies and Gentlemen, I can finally say welcome to my site !

After Developing the site in Java, it was so hard to find a decent yet decently priced java host. I tried Godaddy’s Linux shared hosting but there are way too many restrictions in their java permissions.
First they do not allow you to create new files on your hosting account using java code (ps: creating it in the tmp directory is allowed but useless for some applications).
Second, godaddy will not let you read external files, i.e. files that are not hosted on your account. For instance, if you want to parse an RSS feed from CNN or slashdot, that will not be allowed.
Third, as a user, you will not be able to access your databases from an external source. You will not be allowed to use a desktop application to access your databases, however you have to go through the hassle of logging in to your “Hosting Manager” to go to phpmyadmin and access your db.
Finally godaddy will not allow you to communicate with services like paypal. You will have to use cURL to deal with such communications which is not nice.

So after these problems, I decided to look for another java host, and I found LunarPages. I subscribed to them and enabled java on my account. After couple of months I added another domain to my account and noticed that it didn’t execute jsp pages and java servlets. After talking to their support they told me that java is 4.95$/month PER DOMAIN. I didn’t like that and canceled the java add on and finally decided to reprogram the site in PHP.

Without prior experience with PHP, I transformed my site to be a php site in a day and a half.

I could say that I am disappointed that there are no decent Java hosts, however I gained some experience in PHP programming by doing this site.

I integrated wordpress and redesigned the theme to look seamless on my website, I added some captcha to the contact form so I wouldn’t be hammered with spam emails.

This has been the journey so far, and I can finally say … Welcome to my site!