From: owner-cranlist-digest@smoe.org (cranlist-digest) To: cranlist-digest@smoe.org Subject: cranlist-digest V6 #4 Reply-To: cranlist@smoe.org Sender: owner-cranlist-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-cranlist-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk cranlist-digest Friday, February 7 2003 Volume 06 : Number 004 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: %Cran: OT: Web Hosting [Greg Teltschik ] Re: %Cran: OT: Web Hosting [Johannes Schmidt ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 01:17:40 -0600 From: Greg Teltschik Subject: Re: %Cran: OT: Web Hosting At 01:36 AM 2/6/2003 +1100, Johannes Schmidt wrote: >Hi, > >Do any of you guys use web hosting companies? If so, who do you use? Are >they good? Are they expensive? > >Currently having some problems with a company I'm using (featureprice.com) >and am looking for alternatives. > There are so many variables, it's hard to even start. Are you looking for cheap or reliable? Do you care about technical support or not? What do you need: small space, large space, lots of bandwidth? My best advice is to figure out just what features/requirements you have, then go and try to find a company that meets those. Then, before you sign up, do some thorough searches to make sure they live up to their marketing hype. You'll find some companies will promise a certain amount of bandwidth, but then cap you lower than that. Others will promise service and never deliver. We're connected by T3s!!!! But we didn't mention that we only contract for 1MB of that. I did a similar search but didn't find what I was looking for. In the end, I set up my old computer as a linux box and serve my webpages using the upload portion of my cable line. The only thing I'm paying is for a service that makes sure that requests get routed to my dynamic IP address. Course, I know a lot about linux, computers, networking, etc. and can pretty much take care of it all. Let me know if I can help with anything or answer any specific questions. Greg Greg Teltschik gteltschik@mindspring.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 18:47:50 +1100 From: Johannes Schmidt Subject: Re: %Cran: OT: Web Hosting Thanks Greg and Jana, > There are so many variables, it's hard to even start. Are you looking > for cheap or reliable? Do you care about technical support or not? > What do you need: small space, large space, lots of bandwidth? What I need is: Domain hosting, including the ability to create subdomains >= 150 pop or imap account >= 150 email aliases Scalability (affordable) for disk space (currently using around 100MB, which could easily jump to 1-2GB in the next 12 months) PHP, Perl, MySQL (or another SQL server) Reliable connections SSL Helpful Tech Support. Had all of this from featureprice.com. Except a month ago our entire https directory tree magically disappeared, and SSL has been disabled since then. Tech support suddenly had a turnaround time of 5-7 days instead of 4-6 hours, and tech support gave me useless answers like "we checked the server your domain is hosted on and it's responding normal". When I replied and told them exactly what was wrong (Missing directories & SSL), they sent me another message, a week later, telling me everything is responding normal. > I did a similar search but didn't find what I was looking for. In the > end, I set up my old computer as a linux box and serve my webpages > using the upload portion of my cable line. The only thing I'm paying > is for a service that makes sure that requests get routed to my > dynamic IP address. Course, I know a lot about linux, computers, > networking, etc. and can pretty much take care of it all. I personally would prefer to set up my own server and do the sys admin myself (also being a unix person), but this is for the Clubs & Societies division of my student union (Monash Student Association, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia). The problem is that I'm the president right now. But I won't be forever. It's more than likely that in the relatively short term there won't be anyone to replace me as sys admin when I'm gone. On top of that, the university's Information Technology Services (ITS) department generally don't allow us to set up our own servers (and they charge us an arm and a leg for the bandwidth). We've considered getting a dedicated Cable or DSL line, but again it's not an option because the university doesn't allow it. They say everything telecommunications related has to go thru ITS. So we're stuck with external hosting. Then the next best thing would be to have it hosted in Melbourne, or at least in Australia. But... our govt only deregulated telecommunications a few years ago, and Telstra, which used to be the govt telco, which is now 2/3 privatised, owns 98% of Australia's telco infrastructure, a monopoly that they exploit. It was cost us at least AU$3000 to get the service we want, whereas we can host in the US for AU$400. > > Let me know if I can help with anything or answer any specific questions. Well, we've decided to try a different company, phpwebhosting.com. They were recommended to us by some friends. They charge US$9.95/month, provide more bandwidth than we need and support the numbers of email accounts, etc. They give you 125MB of web space, but if you need more they don't charge you for it. They just check to make sure that a) you actually are running out of space and need more, and b) that you're not hosting anything that conflicts with their AUP, like porn, warez, etc. Anyone dealt with these guys that can give me info (good or bad)? So far I've only heard good things, and my initial dealings with them were promising. I emailed them sales questions and had a response within an hour. Anyway, I've written enough irrelevant dribble now. But hey, it's not like there's any lively cran discussion going on :) Cheers, Johannes. ------------------------------ End of cranlist-digest V6 #4 ****************************