Sometime ago, ASP.NET hosting was quite expensive. And most of peoples used php or something else for their web projects. Even I did. But time is changing everything, and now asp.net is a budget technology. We have free .net framework, web developer and hosting for affordable prices. At least we can write and run our sites using this good technology. We have .NET Blog Engine and Yaf, Pdf Sharp, SharpZipLib and other good things (my respect to the developers of these projects).

No, I'm not saying that PHP or Ruby is a piece of shit, these technologies are very cool too.

So, one year ago I started to looking for asp.net web hosting... The most of hostings over the web is something reselled from another resselers... I was impressed, how easy to start own hosting company. But because of this you can receive one big problem - overload. And another big problem - very slow support. Many times I was asked - why do you need support? You know, 99% you don't need it. And first time I've found one cheap hosting, it was a real piece of shit. Don't look for low price in case of hosting, if it's possible - take dedicated server, if not - use good shared servers. Be sure that your hosting provider is not a reseller to receive quick support. And I've found two nice hostings:

1. M6.net . I still have a large plan there, and it runs well. The advantage (or disadvantage) is Plesk! with ability to create independent users with own limits. I like this for some projects. Although, not much of traffic 3000Gb or something like this.

2. IX Web Hosting . No Plesk, own custom control panel, and it works quite good. Maybe not so XP-styled like Plesk, but powerful. 24/7 Support via Live Chat - awesome ! These guys can answer your questions, ready to dig server logs for you. I was impressed. What can I say - I host ASP.NET Cafe there and some other sites. Also, they offer a lot of marketing credits (AdSence, MicrosoftAd, Yahoo! , Miva and others - about $500 in coupons). I'm against Pay-Per-Click Ads, but for free...
A lot of space and traffic. And special thing - 8 dedicated IP's with middle hosting plan (about $9/month). Yes, you can access this site using IP: 98.130.27.45

I still have 3 web hosting accounts, and IX account is the best now for me (and price and quality), M6 is cool because of Plesk (if you need subusers accounts)... and one Linux hosting, but this is another history. Currently I'm not creating new PHP or Ruby driven web sites.

Always wondered, how to run scheduled tasks on windows hosting. For example, under the Plesk control.
At the first look, everything is ok. We have scheduled task and "command line" for it. But what to write there? This is a big question.

Somebody says - no problem, I'll write "iexplore http://example.com/track.aspx"

But I'm wondering, who closes this internet explorer process on server, and what if you are going to run this task each 5minutes?

I don't like this way. So, where is the answer? Answer inside VB. All what we need - is to create vb script and run it inside command string.
This script creates Microsoft.XMLHTTP instance (yes, we don't need to check anything like in AJAX deal, because we are certainly in Microsoft environment). And using this instance request your ASPX page to do all the job.

So, when I've asked my hosting support, how to call aspx page scheduled - they said - this impossible. Call PHP page and there request your ASPX if you want. No, thanks.

  Plesk screen... to add scheduled task. "Path to executable" should be set to ABSOLUTE path to vbs file on server. Where you can get this path... First of all, you hoster should give you info about your site's folder. If not, write a simple aspx page with Server.MapPath("my.vbs");

shedule.vbs (587.00 bytes)

Everybody know that most of ASP.NET enabled hostings use Plesk! as control panel. Yes, it's quite nice, but can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
Right now, I've two hostings with Plesk and without...
Yes, ASP.NET CAFE admined through H-SPHERE control panel. It not so pretty like Plesk. Yes, there are a lot of cool design in Plesk.
But H-SPHERE Control panel looks nice. IMHO.

Anyway... what is great difference in Control Panels... Only content matters.