I thought about that too. But I have been chatting with their ICQ rep, well not actually chatting. I leave a message and get a reply an hour or so later. :)

I asked this morning if the staff would be working today and the ICQ rep said yes. I didn't even remember about the phone... I've been so stressed I think I'm loosing my mind! :o

What would be an appropriate time period for an account to be setup and ready for client use?

I suppose that depends on the system and what sort of guarantees a host wants to make to clients.

Ours is automated, like quite a few others, and goes through in less than five minutes. I've seen some that are not automated that offer between 30 minutes on the low side (which implies that there is someone monitoring 24x7, although this certainly might not be the case) and "within 1-2 days" on the high side. That last requires some sort of extra effort on the part of the client, such as a phone call, which I think is unlikely to convince many people to sign up.

There are so many hosts out there that it's probably very difficult to get an average. But appropriate - well, people usually want the setup done sooner rather than later. :)

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Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

So four days would be pushing it, right?

I just resold my first account @ Burst on Friday morning. They have a guarantee (or 'general rule' which is what it said on their order form), 6 hours or less. After 24 hours I emailed their sales dept. and today I emailed support. No reply yet, though.

I'm not really getting too far on that guarantee. Was wondering if anyone knows if this happens often w/BurstNET or if it is a one time thing. What can you do when a guarantee like this isn't met?

Seems I've had a streak of bad luck, but I actually like Burst... so I'm hoping this is a once and a while mishap and not common practice. Any info. or advice is welcomed. Thanks. :)

AIS,

4 days is simply atrocious and unless Sean from Burst (who hangs around here occasionally) can help you rectify the problem or explain what's going on, then I think it would be far better for you to move your account somewhere else.

Burst is usually a decent host, but they have had some 'minor' problems over the last month or two with new server lines, the incorporation of *cough* *hack*TH*hack* *cough*, and other niggly problems.

I was one of those *cough* *hack* TH Clients *hack* *cough*, so my clients already went through a nasty time when moving over there, so doing that again to them would be cruel.

I didn't really want to post this problem out in public, but I hoped maybe Sean would see it and reply faster than he or their support team could by email.

Well, guess I'll just see what happens then... I might just end up keeping my few clients with them and moving on somewhere else for future clients. Their uptime has been excellent this past week, thought maybe my luck was changing...

Unfortinuately 4 days is literally UNHEARD of in the hosting industry. My clients would turn and run very fast if I started taking 4 days to reply to emails or to setup an account. 4 days is the time it takes to setup some dedicated servers (order parts ect) not setup a virtual host account, it takes 30 seconds to setup an account anyhow.

I'll be honest when 4 days sounds like they don't have anyone working for them anymore. I have no clue what their status is but Sean has become a hermit and disappeared from the boards as far as I know and if their not replying to emails then I'm not sure :(.

Best of luck getting a reply.



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Sincerely~
Daniel Pearson
UltraSpeed USA
http://www.ultraspeedusa.com
AIM: UltraSpeedUSA
ICQ: 7021831
Email: dpearson@ultraspeedusa.com
Phone: 1-205-785-1872

Four days is quite a long time to wait for a virtual hosting account, to be sure, and completely unacceptable to most people. However, one thing that occurs to me is that here in the US, this has been a long holiday weekend - perhaps they just aren't there? Burst offers a toll-free number - it might be advisable to pick up the phone and give them a ring to see what's going on (or to see if they're working this weekend, given the holiday and all).

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Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

Does Burst has lousy of promising setup accounts within 6 hours or 4 hours likely for resellers? if that so, that is not a host you would shop with. My suggest you to move to other host that allows you to setup resold accounts in real time for resellers so you won't be ripped off. I want to see you be happy and save you trouble. I hope to build a new reseller program for my company so resellers can be able to setup accounts within 10 minutes at least. I am really sorry for all large ISP who has lousy promising services and making customers happy for thier money they are paying for. Anyone agree with me? Just an hontest opinion :)

Hmmm, well AIS, that sure kinda makes you look like an ass, eh? 4 days?

Well, I only set up one account with them, and a sub domain. I can't remember exactly how long it took to set up the original domain,but I do remember it took about 4 days to set up the sub domain.

I am not here all the time, so any email sent to me will sit for a few hours (sometimes), and if I were to add 4 days to that, it would most certainly be unacceptable.

I think you would be better off with a instant automated set-up type arrangement. many of the Alabanza hosts can offer this to you, and they are all so nice that I'd hate to recommend one over another!

NO WAY! ESPECIALLY, AIS since youve had some form of contact with them via icq! Actually thats even worse, that you still are not getting setup! I would be searching for another reseller plan...REAL quick!! Let me add here, we do NOT offer a resellers package but shop around there are tons out there that do! Hope you get it all worked out!


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HostCaters--We Cater Hosting
www.hostcaters.com (http://www.hostcaters.com)

I got a reply back today to an email I sent Sean yesterday and he told me that they never recieved the order.

So I reordered the account today and it was set up in about 4 hours... I knew there was something going on, too bad I couldn't have had it resolved sooner. Luckily my client understood the situation and stuck it out with me. :)

Originally posted by AIS:
I got a reply back today to an email I sent Sean yesterday and he told me that they never recieved the order.

Don't you wish they could tell you when they don't receive your request?!

...All those not here, please say "Aye"! :)

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tk
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Whoops! There goes another $.02!

Aye! lol, of course you'd have to put those psychic hotline people to use. ;)

"Hello, I'd like to know which requests we didn't receive today and the e-mail addresses of all the people that we didn't get them from?"

"Today all requests came through, however the ace of credit cards tells me your girlfriend is cheating on you with your best friend. Thanks for calling Wendy's Psychic Hotline!"

AIS,
I just wanted to say hope there's no hard feelings about my jest. I wasn't making light of your situation, but rather sharing the frustration.

I had a similar thing happen with a host I used to use. It's convenient for someone to say they never received it. This is one case where it's too bad you can't put return receipt on the Internet.



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tk
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Whoops! There goes another $.02!

No hard feelings at all, your post actually made me laugh ;)

Tk re: "you can't put return receipt on the Internet"... are you aware that you actually can? If you use Outlook Express, you can request read receipt. Might come in handy for you.

Originally posted by Chicken:
Tk re: "you can't put return receipt on the Internet"... are you aware that you actually can? If you use Outlook Express, you can request read receipt. Might come in handy for you.

Chicken,
I have tried it in the past with OutlookExpress, and I never have received the return receipt. But, I know my message has been read because the person I sent it to replied...

Hmmm... maybe I'll try it again just to see if it works now (maybe something changed?).

Anyway, thanks for the info. Let you know what happens.


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tk
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Whoops! There goes another $.02!

When I got my account at Intergenix, I got my userid and password when i clicked on the submit button. I'm assuming they have some program that does everything. My account was up and running. I logged in and uploaded my site a few minutes later. Of caurse, it took a day or so to transfer the domain name, but thats standard.

Tk, I should have mentioned that I am not sure if this works for all programs, etc. This may only work if the email is read by outlook/outlookexp. Not sure.

I can see it not working with hotmail, or any number of different reasons. There is also the option to click "no" which then you wouldn't get a receipt. Not failsafe by any means, just something to try. :)

I would be interested in knowing what the limitations are of this, if you find out.

Chicken,
I'll try it out (I have a couple different email types of email accounts). It won't be an exhaustive test by any means, but I'll post with the results (probably won't get to it until this weekend, though).


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tk
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Whoops! There goes another $.02!

Yup... Outlook Express does have the RETURN RECEIPT option. So do many of the newer versions of popular emailing software applications.

But the receiver of the particular email can exercise an option whether to actually return a notification of receipt or not. That could be the reason why one may think that the RETURN RECEIPTS function isn't working... when it actually is !!!

The other reason why RETURN RECEIPTS don't seem to work is that all mail programs / mail servers don't support it. It has to be integrated as a feature into the mail program / mail server.

Luckily most of the newer mail programs / servers have the RETURN RECEIPT function as a feature.

It may be that Hotmail and other such web based email services haven't upgraded their mail programs / servers yet (to include the RETURN RECEIPT option).

Learner

[This message has been edited by Learner (edited 07-13-2000).]

Actually, Learner, there are two types of receipts. With one, you can be notified when the message was delivered to the recipient's mailbox or mailserver. With the other, and the one they can refuse, you can be notified when they have opened the message. You can't be sure they read it, though that presumption is there.

So, you guys are talking about being able to refuse to send the receipt to someone that sent you a message return receipt requested (clear as mud?)...
In all the email programs I've used (older version of Eudora, older version of Pegasus, old cc:Mail, OutlookExpress, Outlook, and web based email), I've never been given the option to refuse sending the return receipt.

Is there a setting somewhere to give me that option that I'm not aware of?
--Don't confuse the option of sending it return receipt, with an option of refusing to return receipt, in my question.

Thanks,


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tk
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Whoops! There goes another $.02!

It's in Outlook Express's Options. Go to the Receipt Tab. You have the option to Always send a read receipt, Notify you before sending one, and Never send one.

Yep TK, a popup box comes up and says something to the extent of, "The sender has requested return receipt, would you like to... blah blah blah something" and you can click yes or no.

Like I said, not failsafe by ANY means, heh heh.

I was going to send you one but your email wasn't in your prefs, and I doubt mine is, but I can't remember.