Can good design be deceiving?

Sometimes I come across a site that wows me with it’s design and right away I think” the service it presents must be as good as it’s design” and I sometimes buy from it without hesitation fascinated by it’s great design.

It happened with me recently with WPMU DEV, just as I saw the way they displayed their products and advertized their themes and plugins, I couldn’t resist and I signed up right away, however, after logging in and using some the plugins and putting them to real-world test, I got a bit disappointed.

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I found my hosting, for now!

After a month or so of confusion and continuous searching for the best hosting to go for, I found that my best choice was Bluehost.

I moved my sites to it and I have to say that everything went on smoothly and without a problem.

I find their package to be very good in terms of features and price and I enjoy using cPanel which makes it easy to reach everything I need on my hosting account.

The ability to host more than one site on the same account is very good( I didn’t have this with bizland and that was really bad, as I had to operate multiple accounts and pay for them separately!) So now, I host all my sites in one account that costs $5.95/month with the 2-year package.

My sites seem stable and load a bit faster than they used to and this makes me happy.

Before settling with Bluehost, I did a free signup with Dreamhost making use of their 14-day free trial period and I have to admit they were great except that I had a problem with moving my site and that made me decide not to continue with them, however, if you’re setting up a new site, I would definetly recommend them as they really offer a good service although slightly more expensive that Bluehost( Dreamhost costs $8.95/month if you sign up for 2 years).

N.B.:

I am not affiliated with any hosting company and what I explained above is just my personal experience.

Still thinking of buying an iPad?

Go Get It Today!

I’ve hesitated a lot before buying my iPad( I don’t like to rush into buying new devices until I make sure they’re really worth it), but I believe I was mistaken, I should have got it from the beginning.

After buying the iPad and once I setup it and held it in my hands, I fell in love with it right away.

It’s a really amazing device, great screen, very suitable size, good battery life and wonderful apps you can get for it.

I was concerned that it might not work well for me as I have a PC not a Mac but that proved not to be a problem at all.

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El Malak Pharmacy Online is a finalist

I’ve just been notified that our site, El Malak Pharmacy Online Arabic  has been chosen as a finalist in The  Middle East Internet Awards 2011 competition in the category, Most Improved Website – consumer and lifestyle.

The winners will be announced in the ceremony held in Abu Dhabi, UAE on Sept, 27th, 2011.

Wish us luck!

How do you deal with designer disappointment?

As a designer I sometimes get very disappointed for a number of reasons:

• I work hard on a project and the clients hates it completely!
• I sometimes can’t find inspiration to start on a big project.
• Sometimes looking at great work of others gives me the thought that” I will never be that good!”
• I might work very hard on a project to find that it’s getting very little appreciation by visitors.

So many reasons, but in the end I find myself unable to work or produce something good, and I really don’t know how to deal with such cases.

What about you, do you ever face this situation and if so how to you manage to overcome it?

I’d love to hear from you new and creative ways that you use personally to tackle this roadblock and get back on track again.

Trying and failing with Creattica Gallery

Since the first time I heard of Creattica Gallery, I loved the idea of getting my work featured on it, and since then I’ve tried to submit my design work multiple times but until now I kept getting this message,

Unfortunately your submission “” has not been accepted into the Creattica gallery.

But What is Creattica?

Creattica gallery

Creattica is a gallery of great design and inspirational imagery. Anyone can submit their work for consideration and voting on items is open to one and all. The best work is accepted and featured in the gallery which receives thousands of visitors every day.

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