Six66Mike - 1-16-2007 at 10:28 AM
I use Monster Hosting http://www.monsterhosting.ca/hosting/unixhostingcanada.php
Currently on Unix Starter at 1GB disk space, 100GB bandwidth a month, 24/7 support, phpBB install & regular updates (among other things, full
Fantastico back end in CPanel) etc etc.
Check em out. Discounts for longer contracts (1 year 15% 2 years 20%)
Check out the plans, never had any down time and when they moved me to a new server everything went flawless also.
XHonusWagnerX - 1-16-2007 at 12:25 PM
Unrelated to this, but another question for BD.....
what did you think of the web design files I sent you for our project?
BDx13 - 1-16-2007 at 04:35 PM
honus - i haven't looked that closely at them, but when i went through it quickly, it looks nice and everything seemed fine. i'll have more time for
it in a few weeks. did i tell you i registered the domain?
boycott - if you're looking for inexpensive hosting with huge disk space and/or bandwidth numbers, i've heard good things about dreamhost.com and
hostgator.com. the only budget place i've used and would recommend is lunarpages.com. that said, keep in mind that what you're gettign with these
companies (unless you get a dedicated machine) is an oversold, shared server with 1000s of other sites on it. these companies offer wild amounts of
bandwidth and disk space cause they know most people wil never use it.
BDx13 - 1-17-2007 at 12:23 PM
most budget hosting providers do have a bad rap, and in most cases, rightfully so. they try to compete by offering wildly low prices and insane
amounts of bandwidth. it's just not possible for everyone on a server to use 200G of disk space and 2TB of bandwidth and to only charge those
customers $8 a month. like i said, they offer that assuming you'll never use it.
also consider the type of service you're gonna get. most budget providers offer messageboards and an online ticket system. and there's no tellign
how long it will take for them to get back to you. few of these places offer phone service. if they do, the person you're speaking with is basically
an operator who takes notes about the problem then passes them on to the technicians.
also be sure to read the terms and conditions. too often, there is language that gives the hosting company the right to pull the plug on your account
for any arbitrary reason. and when it happens, that reason is often because you're using more than your 'fair share of the server resources'. what
does that mean? if you're running an active forum, that requires a lot of calls to a database, which is very processor intensive. if your account is
requiring more processor resources than the other 1,999 sites on the box, then they might shut it down. it's difficult to assign a number to that,
and that's why the service language is vague. same goes for bandwidth... having lots of small files downloaded effects bandwidth consumption
differently than having even just a handful of large files downloaded. becuse they're bigger, they take longer to go through the pipe, thus filling
more of the pipe for longer, and raising more red flags.
basically all that ranting is why i don't use shared hosting. hosting snob, i guess. that doesn't mean it's not right for you. you have to consider
your priorities. if cost is the primary concern, then you're probably willing to work with within the confines of your budget host's agreements. in
the example of thorp and sgr, we reached a point in our business where we were not willing to work within those confines. the server and the hosting
facility network must be up 100% of the time; our business depends on it. "99% uptime" equals nearly 10 hours of downtime a month. i can't have
that. if there's a problem, i need to get someone on the phone immediately who can actually fix the problem. i can't worry about sharing a server
with some moron who might accidently bring down the entire machine. and for that level of service, we pay.
BDx13 - 1-17-2007 at 12:28 PM
if you want to do more research on the topic, i'd recommend this site: http://webhostingtalk.com
again, be sure to take what you read with a grain of salt. there is no shortage of spammers complaining that a company canceled their account. duh!
"no spamming allowed!"