I recently went looking for a host for my site and after a lot of searching came up with http://www.secured-net.net
They looked promising. Around $9 for 3 months with 10mb of space and unlimited band width. I signed up
and started to upload my site. Things were going great until I started trying to get some CGI stuff going. I had problems and contacted their support. I knew the problem had nothing to do with my scripts because they worked fine on another server. After many messages back and fourth which basically blamed my script for the problems I got upset and posted a flame on their members board. Their response was "What are we supost to do? We arent perl experts."
After that I setup my email account and sent a few test emails. Nothing got through. I sent a few more waited half an hour. Nothing got through. I sent them and email explaining the problem. No response.
Then I tried setting up a database for the site with mysql. The phpadmin wasnt working and they dont allow telnet access to their servers so I sent another email.
No response.
By this time I was completely pissed off and sent them an email asking them to terminate my account. This one got a reply! "Please, we know we have been having problems with our servers, just stay with us for the next few days and you will see we will have the problems sorted out. If not cancel then ok?"
By this time I had already signed up with another provider. http://aletiahosting.com/
I told them I had already moved my site and I wanted to cancel right away.
I had some reservations about Aletiahosting after being burnt once but I needed to get the website hosted.
Well they have turned out to be an absolute blessing. Their package I chose which is around $10 a month includes 200mb of space and 10gb of transfer a month. They have cgi, mysql and everything else under the sun I need. The member page has a console which has everything included, from setting up email addresses to creating databases.
Their best quality though is the support. Its is outstanding. They have people online 24/7 and my questions are answered instantly. This kind of customer service is what will keep me using their services for years to come. So if people are looking for reccomendations for a good host I can highly reccomend
Aletia Hosting.

pr0n

If Aletiahosting is really so great... why is your site (pr0nsurfer.com) hosted on an IP (209.123.141.157) which is part of a netblock (209.123.141.0/24) which is owned by pwebtech?

Reply to self: because Aletiahosting has a server at pwebtech, of course. Duh!

Originally posted by cperciva
If Aletiahosting is really so great... why is your site (pr0nsurfer.com) hosted on an IP (209.123.141.157) which is part of a netblock (209.123.141.0/24) which is owned by pwebtech?

I'm almost positive Aletia recently got a server from pwebtech.com because Burst was having so many issues with downtime.

Originally posted by cperciva
If Aletiahosting is really so great... why is your site (pr0nsurfer.com) hosted on an IP (209.123.141.157) which is part of a netblock (209.123.141.0/24) which is owned by pwebtech?

Aletiahosting.com's site shows as being on hostnoc.net's IP block -- but aletiahosting.com's domain record points to aletia.com's (their own) DNS servers, which are hosted on NAC.net (same as Pwebtech) IP block. So, it appears aletiahosting.com isn't on the same IP block/NOC as their client's. Timothy's post (which I just now noticed after I posted this reply that I'm now editing) probably explains why that is.

Hi! I've had Aletia for about 2 weeks now after a month of watching them, and other companies. I have to say I am very pleased. One of their methods of contact is AIM and I have been able to have nice conversations with them when I have a problem (mostly my stupidity ;) ) When I sent in a request for my MX records to be changed for a multi-hosted domain, they had it done and replied in 15 minutes. My only problem has been some downtime and their cpanel is just a little weird.

To clear up stuff. Aletia was at Burst.net but, because of the sprint backbone having troubles, they are moving to NAC.net. The transfer has been very smooth! Aletia is a very good host!

Well, I'm off to get the ten dollars they promised to give me if I said that...... ;) :D :laugh: Oh do I wish

BurstNET HAS NOT had alot of downtime in our new data center.
Our connectivity has been approx 99.7% since we opened the facility on May 1st, 2001.
This will only get higher with the addition of the new AT&T DS3 coming in just a few weeks.

We have also had minimal downtime on individual servers in the facility since our move.
There have been some specific exceptions due to some clients overloading their servers to the point that they cannot handle the load. At that point we advise the client to upgrade the machine, but we cannot be held responsible for such downtime on a specific machine should the client decide to not upgrade the machine and leave it as is.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Originally posted by pr0n
I recently went looking for a host for my site and after a lot of searching came up with....
They looked promising. Around $9 for 3 months with 10mb of space and unlimited band width.
I'm glad you found what appears to be a reliable host. You have just found out from first hand experience what happens whn you choose a host that advertises unlimited bandwidth. TANSSAAFL.

Originally posted by Dogma
To clear up stuff. Aletia was at Burst.net but, because of the sprint backbone having troubles, they are moving to NAC.net. The transfer has been very smooth! Aletia is a very good host!

Sean, i don't think he said the datacenter was down. I've seen the Sprint problems and (if it helps), from me to Burst, the connections always seemed to stop 1/2 way between Dallas and Fort Worth TX somewhere.

the coming added connectivity should help to stomp this problem (if it is still a problem even, haven't heard complaints lately).

I think Sean meant the uptime of the Sprint connection.

Correct, I am referring to the combined data center uptime (our own equipment and network) and Sprint connectivity from us to the rest of the world.
Everything combined we have had an approx 99.7% uptime...which includes the minor issues Sprint had, and is mostly the minor issues Sprint had.

What is nice is that any issues Sprint has had, they have been able to correct pretty promptly...without resulting in something like a 8-12 hour downtime. ALL backbones WILL have issues....but it shows good server when they can correct them within the hour. All in all we are EXTREMELY happy with our Sprint DS3, and would order it from them again if we had to do this all over.

Sean R.
BurstNET

Our clinets have reported a 25% increase on our speeds since we moved from communitech.net and skynetweb,s "MULTIHOMED" networks, Their uptime has been great, we have seen quite impressive results about the server's performance from InternetSeer <internetseer.com>, I dont remember *any* problems from Sprint at all...

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by cperciva
If Aletiahosting is really so great... why is your site (pr0nsurfer.com) hosted on an IP (209.123.141.157) which is part of a netblock (209.123.141.0/24) which is owned by pwebtech?

Reply to self: because Aletiahosting has a server at pwebtech, of course. Duh!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And I care about that because??

Reply to self: Oh. I dont.

Pr0n

Originally posted by BurstNET
[SNIP]

We have also had minimal downtime on individual servers in the facility since our move.
There have been some specific exceptions due to some clients overloading their servers to the point that they cannot handle the load. At that point we advise the client to upgrade the machine, but we cannot be held responsible for such downtime on a specific machine should the client decide to not upgrade the machine and leave it as is.

Sean R.
BurstNET

I'm curious if you offer another alternative other than upgrading the server? I.e., offering a service where you can go in and tune it for better performance or something? Tjis usually is faster, cheaper and more attractive to a client than offering hardware upgrades.

>> I'm curious if you offer another alternative other than upgrading the server? I.e., offering a service where you can go in and tune it for better performance or something? Tjis usually is faster, cheaper and more attractive to a client than offering hardware upgrades. >>

Of course we look at the machine first and try and find out what would be overloading it, and if there is anyway to make it run smoother...by making those high-end processes not a priority, or whatever....BUT if the hardware cannot handle what the client is trying to do, it can't handle it, and no sysadmin is going to be able to make it happen without severly capping the processes allowed to run.

Sure...Ebay can run on a Celeron 400, but it's not going to be serving very many pages, and it better be refusing alot of connections :-)

Sean R.
BurstNET

Originally posted by BurstNET
>> I'm curious if you offer another alternative other than upgrading the server? I.e., offering a service where you can go in and tune it for better performance or something? Tjis usually is faster, cheaper and more attractive to a client than offering hardware upgrades. >>

Of course we look at the machine first and try and find out what would be overloading it, and if there is anyway to make it run smoother...by making those high-end processes not a priority, or whatever....BUT if the hardware cannot handle what the client is trying to do, it can't handle it, and no sysadmin is going to be able to make it happen without severly capping the processes allowed to run.

Sure...Ebay can run on a Celeron 400, but it's not going to be serving very many pages, and it better be refusing alot of connections :-)

Sean R.
BurstNET

True, of course, but I just meant in most cases and as far an alternative to their servers being 'down' or as you said "There have been some specific exceptions due to some clients overloading their servers to the point that they cannot handle the load." Of course you can only configure it so far, but it'd usually be a pretty low end system to require an upgrade of hardware or not have some tweaking help them -- I mean, in place of a hardware upgrade or having their servers overload.

Of course, as we all know, you can't really do much beyond going through and recoding a lot of bad software/scripts people run to help the performance for most dedicated servers that are overloaded that can't be tweaked to perform better, which isn't realistic. However, I just meant some sort of configuration to help the user's server at least not get to the point where it would get that bad or continue to be that bad as far as a load to require them to _need_ an upgrade of hardware -- since you can limit things to at least keep the server up. However, we also all know and understand that this could result in the same slowness in response, but at least the server will not go down or be under a heavy load. That, to be more clear, was what I was asking -- just an alternative, not that it's always a reasonable solution to solve the problem. Anyway, I guess you said, in not so many words, that yes, you do.

Now heres a question - with all the different control panels, etc out there, which one is actually the most 'server friendly'? I'm sure Tims refering to the kludge that is Cpanel3, but how are the rest? Cpanels the most 'friendly', but is that friendlyness at the cost of bloat which defeats the whole purpose of running a *nix box vs a winblows box? A good question, I mean, a RAQ seems to run fine with 256mb ram, yet alot of the Linux boxes seem to get really bogged down unless you crank em over 512mb. Maybe this is an apples to dolphins comparison, but I just wonder. Anyone want to tackle it, please start a new thread as I think this goes -way- off course. :D

danke!

I'm not sure where control panels (let alone, Cpanel) came into this subject, but that's not at all what I meant. However, I do know what you're saying and this is somewhat true -- as per what software is installed and ran on a server. A server with a 500 MHZ CPU and 256 Megs RAM should _not_ need to be upgraded -- not for a dedicated server anyway. Unless, of course, the software people are running on said server required more -- in which case I'd simply throw away that software.

Unix variants, Linux, FreeBSD, whatever.. they are built to run on a very small amout of resources and run well. I can run any of the programs I code on my home network on any system (FreeBSD, Linux, whatever) with a P120 CPU and 24 Megs RAM without any notice of delay compared to an 800+ MHZ CPU or 512+ megs RAM. It's simply not needed, nor would it make a difference, unless there was a lot of consecutive hits.

Of course, that is the variable we're talking about, but unless a system is low end (say a 200 MHZ CPU or less with 64 Megs RAM or less), most well trafficked sites should be able to run just fine with a 300+ MHZ CPU and 128 Megs RAM (or around that) -- but that's not true of every client or every dedicated server. I've created CGI scripts in Perl to do complex things and received hundreds of thousands of hits a day for months and months, non stop, with far less hardware than I mentioned above. I had no problems with it for the most part -- until both Yahoo and web crawler listed my site on the top 2 most accessed and suggested, which was simply too much for my provider at the time to handle -- and yes, the server too -- but that was just due to far too many hits on the system -- and far more than most servers will ever see in their entire time online.

However, many people run many type's of software, and many coders now-a-days are less qualified, have less concern and spend less time making their programs efficient. The reason for that fast, is that hardware is so cheap now, why spend the time coding a program to run 20% faster, when you can spend $40 more and have a CPU that runs 30% faster anyway? One potential employer in my local area (a few years ago) had that opinion -- I didn't take the job, because I didn't feel he was concerned about quality -- he said "If they want their programs to run faster, they can buy a faster system". It seems that a lot of software developers either don't know how or don't care -- or have this same opinion, because it's insane for a server (a dedicated server of your own, for example) to need so much hardware.

Of course, Burst never said what they had or could be upgraded to or what caused the load on the server, so that's not to say there was any reasonable manner to prevent or repeair the problem of the server overloading, but often this can be accomplished. It also depends on what that user is running. As far as control panel's go -- ALL they should do, is make the task a user or administrator has to do, easier and faster. Control panel's should _never_ run as or do anything else or use any files in any manner that would put a load on a server. They should not do anything but create an interface in place of two things; Command line commands and to make it so user's don't have to posses knowledge of certain (or any) aspects to do certain tasks that they wish to have done/implemented without waiting for an administrator to do this for them.

Finally, they (any software or control panel) should _never_, _ever_ defeat the purpose. I.e., a user friendly interface of a control panel user's can see, use and set things up without knowing commands of ask the provider to do these things, only to have it screw up and require twice the work of the provider to repair things the control panel screwed up, only to do it manually anyway and delay things, and then also add the task of trying to find a way to prevent or repair the cause of the screw ups. I am lost as to why people run such programs, and especially for the sake of making their job(s) easier or to make client's happy, when it creates problems that would not have occured otherwise. Some programs are great to have, in theory, but aren't built well. This holds true of server loads, how they are configured and how well they perform -- and then the software that's run on the server. Indeed, it's ridiculous and overkill to have so much RAM.. no server (NO SERVER) should need more than 512, and rarely over 256. If they do, then people need to discover how to recognize or how to code better scripts and software and how to make use of tools like FastCGI, writing an Apache module yourself or a variety of other things that could completely prevent systems overloading.

Also, Burst could have been talking about some dedicated client with either some very bad software running or one with 64 Megs RAM and running a ton of services and getting a ton of hits -- in which case, I am reminded of my ranting on another thread a while back, about how I don't understand why _anyone_ would offer a dedicated server with only 64 Megs RAM -- since any user that could use that much with ease and not overload it, would be fine on a shared hosting plan anyway. So, I'm not sure what those servers were running or how much hardware they did or did not have, but _most_ of the time, things can be done to prevent servers from overloading -- but sometimes not without an upgrade.

So, I'm not going to guess about solutions or problems with that, because it's irrelevant to what I'm saying now, other than you're correct about something not being right about a server that is overloading with 512 megs RAM an a decent CPU. As far as RAQ's go, I'll spare everyone here and not get started on that. I'd have posted this in a new thread, but it wouldn't really make sense on where it was coming from. :-) But, I too wonder what must be going on with some servers that are bogging down with 256 Megs RAM and an 800+ MHZ CPU.

PS: This post of mine, had nothing to do with Burst or any assumptions about them -- to save anyone any confusion based on my mentioning the company's name in the post.

Originally posted by Tim_Greer
A server with a 500 MHZ CPU and 256 Megs RAM should _not_ need to be upgraded -- not for a dedicated server anyway. Unless, of course, the software people are running on said server required more -- in which case I'd simply throw away that software.

Tim, nice provocation ;)
Do you think this is also true for a server running 250 sites? Or a server running a single site like WHT which uses mysql heavily?

Just to defend myself........I recieved an email from my host saying that they were moving because there has been "excessive downtime" I experianced 4 + hours of it a couple of weeks ago. Anywho.....Tim>> how the hell do you type so much!?!?

Originally posted by Dogma
Anywho.....Tim>> how the hell do you type so much!?!?

He is Typing Addict.
It is normal for him. Actually, the post was rather short. He usually types a page long. :blush:

Tim,

You managed to go that whole time and only mention "Cpanel" once (and inside parentheses at that). You've shown admirable restraint. :D

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Originally posted by Walter


Tim, nice provocation ;)
Do you think this is also true for a server running 250 sites? Or a server running a single site like WHT which uses mysql heavily?

In most cases, a 500 MHZ CPU and 256 Megs RAM would be fine for a server with 250 sites on it. Of course, it surely depends on what these sites are running. I've seen shared servers with one, tiny account running a very poorly written Perl script to run via a cron job, consume between 80 and 99% of the CPU for 4 days before anyone noticed, only to be killed off and have the thing run again -- and the host never limited the user's process or removed the offending script. A repeating process that never ended, it was ridiculous.

This host also had over 300 accounts and over 500 domains, some of which had over 200,000 hits a day (Some Jennifer Lopez celeb site or something) and many other's running CGI and PHP (forums, chats, etc.) and they rarely had a problem (other than that one guy's script!) -- and that's without any process limitations or the like. Some programs can run well, some will simply consume a lot of resources, some can be modified fairly easily too. It depends.

I've not looked at the software/code that this forum runs on, but assuming it's fairly decent, I would bet it would run fine on a server with 249 other sites that aren't taking up an unreasonable amount of resources (and/or for too long -- something broken) with the specs I posted. If it didn't, I'd think there'd be something wrong with the code and something isn't running very efficient. Of course, that is the point and the potential problem.. but any script that's coded poorly or simply not efficient enough can consume all of the RAM and/or CPU in no time at all and leave the system rendered useless until it's controlled or prevented (or something...)

Also, realize this fact; As all of us know, many providers ran many, many sites on the systems available to them a few years ago, and many had no problems with heavy trafficked sites that ran CGI scripts even. This was far less hardware. Of course, now that there's more hardware, developers worry less and less about getting the software to be the most efficient, because it is far less costly to avoid doing when they don't have to. This goes for not just CGI or PHP scripts or whatever, but for the interpeters that run them. Depending on the level of lazyness of what people, other things become adversely affected and down the line it goes, like a domino effect. To say, you can have an efficient, well coded CGI script that wouldn't take up enough resources to matter at all, yet if the system is heavily loaded, your program takes longer to run, and the next and the next and other people's and now it contributes to the problem.

I know for a fact, because I have done so, that a site like WHT, I could code even in Perl, and have 250 sites just like this one (the same traffic, hits) and use flat text file databases -- not even MySQL, Oracle, etc. and not have the system go down. I might need to implement something like FastCGI or mod_perl to lessen the load, but even without, I've seen plenty of providers have very well trafficked sites on the specifications I've described and to do so with many sites and no problems -- even without much (or any) tweaks to the systems performance -- simply with A Linux Redhat server, Apache, Perl, MySQL and PHP stock. Of course, your mileage can and probably will vary, but it's certainly not unreasonable, unlikely or impossible.

Then please program a forum like this one that can run with 250 other sites, I can see you are a knowledgeable man; but I`m not so sure about your abilities, Tim. Because you also claimed that you were going to create a much better control panel than cpanel in some weeks, but where is the result (it is simpler said than done)?

Yes i know, Mark Vochler (if thats how you spell it, sorry if its wrong) from aleitahosting is a great person! i also highly reccomend them.
Originally posted by pr0n
I recently went looking for a host for my site and after a lot of searching came up with http://www.secured-net.net
They looked promising. Around $9 for 3 months with 10mb of space and unlimited band width. I signed up
and started to upload my site. Things were going great until I started trying to get some CGI stuff going. I had problems and contacted their support. I knew the problem had nothing to do with my scripts because they worked fine on another server. After many messages back and fourth which basically blamed my script for the problems I got upset and posted a flame on their members board. Their response was "What are we supost to do? We arent perl experts."
After that I setup my email account and sent a few test emails. Nothing got through. I sent a few more waited half an hour. Nothing got through. I sent them and email explaining the problem. No response.
Then I tried setting up a database for the site with mysql. The phpadmin wasnt working and they dont allow telnet access to their servers so I sent another email.
No response.
By this time I was completely pissed off and sent them an email asking them to terminate my account. This one got a reply! "Please, we know we have been having problems with our servers, just stay with us for the next few days and you will see we will have the problems sorted out. If not cancel then ok?"
By this time I had already signed up with another provider. http://aletiahosting.com/
I told them I had already moved my site and I wanted to cancel right away.
I had some reservations about Aletiahosting after being burnt once but I needed to get the website hosted.
Well they have turned out to be an absolute blessing. Their package I chose which is around $10 a month includes 200mb of space and 10gb of transfer a month. They have cgi, mysql and everything else under the sun I need. The member page has a console which has everything included, from setting up email addresses to creating databases.
Their best quality though is the support. Its is outstanding. They have people online 24/7 and my questions are answered instantly. This kind of customer service is what will keep me using their services for years to come. So if people are looking for reccomendations for a good host I can highly reccomend
Aletia Hosting.

pr0n

Originally posted by Haakon
Then please program a forum like this one that can run with 250 other sites, I can see you are a knowledgeable man; but I`m not so sure about your abilities, Tim. Because you also claimed that you were going to create a much better control panel than cpanel in some weeks, but where is the result (it is simpler said than done)?

There's no reason to get that attitude, is there? I'm not here to "prove" anything or to be challenged or whatever, nor have my abilities questioned. Be reasonable. The reason why I didn't finish developing and release the control panel, is because JaguarPC had already contracted a company to build one much of the same features as I was going to. I also said I would do this over my spare time, since I was in no position to simply cease to do anything else for a week or two (I still have the earn a living). I didn't have much extra time, and the fact that I work for JaguarPC, puts me in an akward position, whereas JaguarPC was to be releasing this new control panel fairly soon, therein making my task of developing and releasing one end up making me a competitor with my employer. This, and other reasons, is why I have delayed development.

I might play some role in some final stages (even possibly rewriting some of it, if needed) of the new control panel. I'm still going to develop mine, as I have time, but it's not a priority. I will eventually get it done, but with the Jaguar control panel coming out soon, there's not as much of an urgency. Basically, I'll wait and see how this one turns out. If the developers are good at what they do, all the nightmares associated with an infamous control panel we all know of, will end. If not, maybe I can modify it and make it better. If nothing else, by then, if it's not what we all want it to be, we'll all be upset, but I could finish and release my own very soon after -- I'm just waiting to see how it goes. So, don't give me this attitude because you are possibly upset that I didn't develop and offer a control panel alternative, because that's what it seems. I have no need to justify or excuse myself for anything, it's simply that I didn't have the time and I'm waiting to see how JaguarPC's control panel turns out. I can't just drop everything and develop a control panel, not when one's on it's way... as again, I do need to do work that I can't just delay getting done.

Perhaps I'm assuming wrong about your attitude here, but your post leads me to believe otherwise. Of course, I don't have time to develop any forum software either. That wasn't an offer or challenge, just an example. I will be developing some forum software fairly soon (for one of my personal sites) that will get about the same traffic as this site, but I won't tell you I'll have 250 of them on the same server, getting the same amount of traffic... I don't think I have that many sites or areas of interest to generate that sort of traffic. I was simply making an example, not to offer to take the time to code some forum software just to show people -- I don't think I can get that kind of traffic to 250 different web boards -- definitely a chat room, but not that many web boards. Anyway, if when JaguarPC's control panel is released, it has any major problems, isn't up to par somehow, or anything that is going to let us or JaguarPC down, you will then see my product come into play... in the meantime, I'll develop as I have time... if that's okay with you?

Tim, I don't think Haakon wanted to offend you, but you jumped in and basically told everyone that they are idiots. :) - under normal conditions I appreciate your postings.

Originally posted by Tim_Greer
A server with a 500 MHZ CPU and 256 Megs RAM should _not_ need to be upgraded -- not for a dedicated server anyway. Unless, of course, the software people are running on said server required more -- in which case I'd simply throw away that software

What a generalization! Would you throw away a valuable tool like VBulletin? There are sites out there who need a server with 1 GB RAM because of the number of concurrent users - do you really want to tell them that either vBulletin is badly written?

But you had a very valid point regarding software engineering - performance is becoming secondary over features nowadays, a thing I also often don't like. One of my skills is database optimization and often I see software (not only in the Net) that would perform much much better with a proper database design.

I'm sorry, I'm just looking at this from a performance point of view. What I said, I stand by. I didn't intend or mean to sound like anyone was basically an idiot or any such thing, if they had to use more hardware to be able to run their site. However, simply put, no site running a certain software should require a GIG of RAM. It's simply too much. If it needs so much, something (or many things) needs to be configured, tweaked or modified -- or recoded. Stock systems are usually going to result in poor performance with certain things, until things are changed -- be it extra software that could slow the functions of the other software down or not utilize memory properly, or any number of other things. It was more of an advice or warning, if anything, that something is wrong (or possibly wrong).

I'm not saying more resources is ever a bad idea -- if you can afford it or just do it becausem that's great -- it's certainly not going to hurt, but I just don't think it's needed. Of course, that's not to say that everyone should buy the most efficient (and likely the most expensive) software instead, or learn or know how to code their own or modify an existing one. The aspect of servers with a high load came up, and I just expressed some personal thoughts about it and how it seems ridiculous to me that so much software runs so poorly and how so much resources simply should not be needed. But, as I mentioned, sometimes there's no other alternatives, but it just bothers me that it's going in this direction and the developers have no excuse to cause this.

Tim: sorry, but I was just a little provoked when you set vBulletin as an example of poorly written code. Maybe I went a little too far with dragging in the control panel issue.
One question though, isn`t your optimization of scripts going to affect the user friendliness? Lets say you put UBB as an example. It is even written in the language you would write it in (Perl), and it is much more resource intensive than vBulletin. It may be poorly written, but how poorly is it possible to write a script? It is developed by professionals also, and I just can`t believe the gap between pro programmers can be about 10000% in resource costs.

Originally posted by Haakon
[B]Tim: sorry, but I was just a little provoked when you set vBulletin as an example of poorly written code. Maybe I went a little too far with dragging in the control panel issue.
One question though, isn`t your optimization of scripts going to affect the user friendliness?


I suppose than, I should say it's my "opinion" that Vbulletin is a poorly coded script (not as per features, but for efficiency) if it consumes so much resources. I am not able to consider any other alternative in that aspect, if it truly consumes so much reources. And, there's no reason why any code written to be efficient should be any less user friendly or lack anything. In fact, although the more features/functions scripts have, the more likely they will need more resources, I was speaking in terms of how the existing routines could probably stand to be recoded or coded to be more efficient. I've seen many popular programs code and noticed many things in them that could be improved drastically in speed. Be is a read fucntion, memory management or some regular expression. Not that they are completely horrible, but an average regular expression can usually be coded to run extremely faster -- and if that regex is parsing a log of data, it can make a very large difference. One of a million examples.



Lets say you put UBB as an example. It is even written in the language you would write it in (Perl), and it is much more resource intensive than vBulletin.


I code in more than Perl, but I think I see your point -- and even though Perl can work fine for a forum or chat (my current chat site is coded in Perl, actually), I'd prefer to code it in C if I wanted the best performance. Likely, I'd just write an Apache module in C. However, UBB certainly (from what I recall seeing) could stand to have the code optimized.


It may be poorly written, but how poorly is it possible to write a script?


I'm not sure what you mean? Are you asking is it so poorly written that you think I'm saying people shouldn't ever use it and should write a better one from the ground up? If so, I'd have to say, maybe. I'd not suggest any large site run UBB or many other forum software out there. I have seen large sites (not to say this one in particular, but for an example only) like MTV.com use free or paid license boards like UBB and VBulletin and they are simply too slow and these company's should have bought a better product or had one coded properly. For the price (and many being free), I'm not saying these are so bad... I'm simply saying, that I personally wouldn't run them, not if I was getting any decent amount of traffic on the site in question. However, even I might run something like it (or the very thing), until I had time to code my own. I don't expect many people would want to or be able to do that. I'm not going to act like many people have a lot of options.

Most people need to use existing software and getting the best one, or best one for the price, is always an issue and probably the only alternative. I just think that it sucks, and this is also why so many hosts don't allow people to run CGI based chat rooms and whatnot in their TOS -- because most are so badly coded, that it makes people believe that CGI is just far too slow. Look at Vbulletin, using PHP and MySQL and how much of a resource hog it can be too -- a PHP module and MySQL... these two tools are supposed to considerably reduce the load, compared to CGI scripts that aren't used in addition with an Apache module (for example), yet it's slower than a program I could code in CGI using Perl alone. I find that appalling.


It is developed by professionals also,


At the sake of sounding petty (it's not meant to be at all), I disagree. I don't think many of these developers are qualified. Most seem more concerned about how many features and bells and whistles that are included (and more features are not a bad thing by any means!) and just slap it together to include said feqatures and make it work, than they are about simply making sure that people can actually even run the program on their account. I mean, the host has to warn them it's a problem and what good does it do them? I'm saying this as a system administrator who's seen so many of these go nuts with the resources on various servers, that it's just completely annoying to have to deal with. Granted, at least they are Matt Wright scripts -- those are always problems. However, even when limits can be set and you can make them not become a problem, it's a hassle.


and I just can`t believe the gap between pro programmers can be about 10000% in resource costs.

Well, this is how I feel about MS (Not to start some MS war), but that's just it. You'd not think there'd be such a large difference, but there is and by looking at most code, how it's programmed to function and with what and how, it definitely makes a large difference. The fact that I've seen programs with as many features getting as many hits and not consuming anywhere near the same amount of resources, simply bothers me beyond words to describe it.

ok :D
seriously, thanks for the answer.

But isn`t there any good (webmaster/webhosters) apps out there, Tim?

Tim is this your longest post ever? this is absolutley amazing, i showed a friend and he was Amazed, he couldn't believed you typed so many long posts. Why don't you go into genius records?
Originally posted by Tim_Greer


I suppose than, I should say it's my "opinion" that Vbulletin is a poorly coded script (not as per features, but for efficiency) if it consumes so much resources. I am not able to consider any other alternative in that aspect, if it truly consumes so much reources. And, there's no reason why any code written to be efficient should be any less user friendly or lack anything. In fact, although the more features/functions scripts have, the more likely they will need more resources, I was speaking in terms of how the existing routines could probably stand to be recoded or coded to be more efficient. I've seen many popular programs code and noticed many things in them that could be improved drastically in speed. Be is a read fucntion, memory management or some regular expression. Not that they are completely horrible, but an average regular expression can usually be coded to run extremely faster -- and if that regex is parsing a log of data, it can make a very large difference. One of a million examples.




I code in more than Perl, but I think I see your point -- and even though Perl can work fine for a forum or chat (my current chat site is coded in Perl, actually), I'd prefer to code it in C if I wanted the best performance. Likely, I'd just write an Apache module in C. However, UBB certainly (from what I recall seeing) could stand to have the code optimized.



I'm not sure what you mean? Are you asking is it so poorly written that you think I'm saying people shouldn't ever use it and should write a better one from the ground up? If so, I'd have to say, maybe. I'd not suggest any large site run UBB or many other forum software out there. I have seen large sites (not to say this one in particular, but for an example only) like MTV.com use free or paid license boards like UBB and VBulletin and they are simply too slow and these company's should have bought a better product or had one coded properly. For the price (and many being free), I'm not saying these are so bad... I'm simply saying, that I personally wouldn't run them, not if I was getting any decent amount of traffic on the site in question. However, even I might run something like it (or the very thing), until I had time to code my own. I don't expect many people would want to or be able to do that. I'm not going to act like many people have a lot of options.

Most people need to use existing software and getting the best one, or best one for the price, is always an issue and probably the only alternative. I just think that it sucks, and this is also why so many hosts don't allow people to run CGI based chat rooms and whatnot in their TOS -- because most are so badly coded, that it makes people believe that CGI is just far too slow. Look at Vbulletin, using PHP and MySQL and how much of a resource hog it can be too -- a PHP module and MySQL... these two tools are supposed to considerably reduce the load, compared to CGI scripts that aren't used in addition with an Apache module (for example), yet it's slower than a program I could code in CGI using Perl alone. I find that appalling.



At the sake of sounding petty (it's not meant to be at all), I disagree. I don't think many of these developers are qualified. Most seem more concerned about how many features and bells and whistles that are included (and more features are not a bad thing by any means!) and just slap it together to include said feqatures and make it work, than they are about simply making sure that people can actually even run the program on their account. I mean, the host has to warn them it's a problem and what good does it do them? I'm saying this as a system administrator who's seen so many of these go nuts with the resources on various servers, that it's just completely annoying to have to deal with. Granted, at least they are Matt Wright scripts -- those are always problems. However, even when limits can be set and you can make them not become a problem, it's a hassle.



Well, this is how I feel about MS (Not to start some MS war), but that's just it. You'd not think there'd be such a large difference, but there is and by looking at most code, how it's programmed to function and with what and how, it definitely makes a large difference. The fact that I've seen programs with as many features getting as many hits and not consuming anywhere near the same amount of resources, simply bothers me beyond words to describe it.

Originally posted by Haakon
ok :D
seriously, thanks for the answer.

But isn`t there any good (webmaster/webhosters) apps out there, Tim?

Yeah, don't misunderstand what I meant, there's certainly some quality, well coded programs and scripts out there, depending on your needs and what you're looking for, certainly.

Originally posted by Hostexp
Tim is this your longest post ever? this is absolutley amazing, i showed a friend and he was Amazed, he couldn't believed you typed so many long posts. Why don't you go into genius records?


This is a far shot from my longest post. if you think that was long, then you don't even want to know...

Originally posted by Tim_Greer


This is a far shot from my longest post. if you think that was long, then you don't even want to know...
Oh no, I've seen Tim do much better than this. A certain post regarding BSD vs. Linux comes to mind.. but I'm sure there are longer ones. ;)

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Good is you pay the money and you happy with it, you get what you want.

Bad is you can not get what you want, can you still want to pay the money

Tim,

I do not dissagree with you but are there or are there not good and bad coders? And what about the distance between them?

Not every company has or can afford the best coders or have the time to make everything 100%

Wich makes me think of MS that easily can afford the best programmers but doesn't seem to have them in house. or is it that if you are a very good programmer you don't want to work for MS?

Anyways, all cars can't be Ferrari's and it has been said many times allready on this board, you get what you pay for.

Vbulletin costs $169 I believe a year per domain so what can you expect from that kind of cash. If I were MTV I would have looked further but you tell me wich script comes close to VB. UBB cost more and is more resource hungry. Opentopic (this costs a lot! $25000 a month is nothing for this app.) maybe? What does it cost for a company to develop a script that suits your needs?

Another thing Tim, I assume you have lots of cash allready because to me you are making (maybe some of you know allready) the assumption in your writing that you are a TOP coder who can do a lot better then the things allready #1 on the market today.

So what about writing a VB killer? Not to mention a cpanel killer app too ;-)
You obviously don't need the money so that's too bad for us I think because we could have better software...

Well, I really don't know what I am talking about here so I better quit.

later guys.

Originally posted by Domenico
Tim,

I do not dissagree with you but are there or are there not good and bad coders?


Of course, yes. Some are horrible, some bad, some learning, some at their limit of their talent, some profocient, some good and some top notch.


And what about the distance between them?


This varies and for many reasons. The reasons usually, that I see, with large company's, is that the large companie's looking for the employee's that have all the certificates that mean nothing and don't really indicate their talent. I've seen too many job posting's looking for experienced programmers, that I completely qualify for myself, yet they require an MSCE, which isn't a big deal, but WHY? I just recently witnessed a 35 year old mother that is single and wants to prove to herself and everyone she knows that she can be involved and work in the computer field. She just graduated with degrees from her local college. She doesn't know JACK about anything, but she passed tests, after wasting two years, because she remembered basic things she was taught.

Now, she just got a job at Intel. Why? A job quota maybe? I don't know, but definitely not for her qualifications. This is more common than not and the majority of people working for Intel, MS, etc. are grossly unqualified. They have their API guys in one place, their guy's doing the basic VB code in another place... monkies doing money work. That's not to say that Intel and MS don't have talented people, and I don't have a good answer for why they release crap. I personally don't have time to go through and waste 4 years of my life, going to college and a Uni to get a piece of paper proving I understand the basics of programming, networking, computer hardware and how to click around on my desk top. Granted, that has kept me out of a lot of very high paying "IT" jobs (Damn I hate that buzz word!), but I don't have time and I want to work for people that recognize what I can do and have that be why they hired me, not some predetermined position that is limited to how well the other people working on the same project do. That is, of course, just one example of what I mean.


Not every company has or can afford the best coders or have the time to make everything 100%


This is definitely true. But not all coders cost an arm and a leg. There's a comprehension level, as well as talent for different subjects in different fields of work -- obviously the Internet, computers, protocols and everything else inebtween, it's very vast. But, I look at it as in the same manner as art, music, etc. You can learn, but how creative are you, how well to you really comprehend the underworkings? Learning about music theory is useless, if you don't have dexterity, and learning to program is useless, if you can't be inventive and have the talent to create the things you want -- and then also understand the underlying issues of how to also make it stable and effificent. I've seen people with good ideas, create neat things, but the code is horribly inefficient, sloppy and ammature-ish. I've also seen some extremely talented programmers understand how and what to do to make it beautiful code (I mean, literally the code itself is like a work of art) and have it be robust, secure, fast, yet they like creativity to build something that people will find interesting or useful enough to use. Some of these people cost too much, and some are like the talented person that has yet to be discovered and doesn't charge very much at all. In fact, often far less than they think or know they are worth.

(continued to part II below -- I really nailed that 10,000 character limit!)

(Part II)


Wich makes me think of MS that easily can afford the best programmers but doesn't seem to have them in house. or is it that if you are a very good programmer you don't want to work for MS?


I'm only 1/2 joking here when I say this, but most talented programmers' I've ran across wouldn't want to work for MS. Maybe they were being sarcastic, maybe not. I'm certain MS has some very talented programmers, and again, I honestly don't know what the issues are, other than likely the whole IT mentality and hiring people that can code, yes. Some that can code well, but getting that many people together, when one coder's mistake in a DLL can ruin the function of the entire OS, has got to be a hard thing to do.



Anyways, all cars can't be Ferrari's and it has been said many times allready on this board, you get what you pay for.


Well, we know that it's often true, but sometimes not.


Vbulletin costs $169 I believe a year per domain so what can you expect from that kind of cash. If I were MTV I would have looked further but you tell me wich script comes close to VB. UBB cost more and is more resource hungry. Opentopic (this costs a lot! $25000 a month is nothing for this app.) maybe? What does it cost for a company to develop a script that suits your needs?


Well, that's a good question. It surely depends. Some people need or want script to work on a specific OS, which might not be the best choice. They might specifically request or demand it be coded using Visual Basic (bleek!) because their only employee that can program only knows how to use VB. It could be that they just want to go with the most popular IT, generic conformnity. I really don't know, but price varies on the project, the developer, if it's in house, contracted, etc... which you know all of this, so I'll not explain that further. But, I see that people often quote far too much of a price.


Another thing Tim, I assume you have lots of cash allready because to me you are making (maybe some of you know allready) the assumption in your writing that you are a TOP coder who can do a lot better then the things allready #1 on the market today.


I'm not at all saying that I'm the top or think I am. When I look something as far as coding, I don't look at how popular it is, how much they might have used for promoting it, if any at all. I look at the code and how it runs. If you understand cars and look at some of the newer cars out there, you will likely think "How can they possibly sell these? Look at how it's designed! It's GOING to break." I look at the code of programs and see it's inefficient, insecure, unstable or whatever, and witness major or minor problems with it and I always find offense that they released the code. I feel, often, like they didn't even test the thing fully. Just posted and replied to a test post and said "Cool, it works, let's move onto the last part of the database connectivity and finish the graphics!".

You'll find that a lot of programmers can look at a lot of code and just get this look on their face and think to themselves "I can't believe these people are getting paid all that money to have this result!". It's like going to MSN.com and having everyone's browser's crash from lame, broken JS code on the page. I hot a lot of sites like that, and I always think "The webmaster of this site (say, Sears.com) probably gets a lot of money for this and this web page crashes all the browsers I hit it with and it's been like this for 4 weeks!" People might say "Oh, so you think you can do better than this professional?" My answer is usually, "Yes, I definitely can!". It's the same for code, it doesn't matter what it is, if you know better or that it can be considerably better, than you know how good or bad some progams are. I've looked at source code before and thought to myself "Wow, I don't see anything wrong with it!" and sometimes I look an think "That's some nice code, and that was a clever idea there!".


So what about writing a VB killer? Not to mention a cpanel killer app too ;-)


I was working on a control panel not too long ago and was going to release it, but I've commited myself to jaguar and they already hired out a development team to develop a killer application, so I'm waiting to see how that turns out. Mind you, I nor Jaguar are going to accept anything less than quality, so I'm preparing to complete mien around that time, just in case. As for forum software, I likely will soon. I know I wasn't happy with any of the web chats out there a few years ago and I ended up getting inspired just to code my own and just simply make it better, faster and more user friendly (and still as or more feature filled) as any of the other's out there. I think I did quite well and many of my user's and site reviewers agreed. I put in some pretty complex stuff there, and although web based chats aren't for everyone (I still need to get time to create a nice java app chat), as far as web chats go, it's about as good as it gets.

I hadn't one bug or problem or security problem or anything, the entire time (years) I ran it. A forum was basically next on my list, for users that didn't have time for the real time chats, but wanted to be active in the community. It's usually about being inspired for me, personally. I don't often just see a bad program and think "I better make one better", because I want to put the effort, work, talent and heart into it to do it right. (I need to complete a few modifications to my chat site, actually, and put it back up sometime soon, not that I've been talking about it).


You obviously don't need the money so that's too bad for us I think because we could have better software...

Well, I really don't know what I am talking about here so I better quit.

later guys.

I appreciate and understand your comments and questions. And, I'm not saying that there isn't good software or programmers, but most of them do seem unqualified. I hate saying it so blunt like that, because it makes me sound like some arrogant SOB. I'm just simply sick of seeing bad code. If there wasn't bad code, my job alone would be much easier as an administrator. If I had time, I'd prefer to just find out what everyone wanted, code all sorts of scripts and programs for people and just say "here you go, enjoy!". I still do projects and whatnot, but I just have to dedicate and commit myself to my job first. As more work increases in that medium, I'll have less time to do other things, unfortunately, but creating and selling even some good forum software might be of interest to the jag team.. you never know. Maybe I'll get inspired and just start in one something and have a lot of fun doing it. I love being challenged as far as creating something, doing programming, security is a lot of fun and all sorts of things that are basically interactive results.

Wow, I am tired, I made a massive amount of typo's and soem of my post makes little to no sense due to that, but... too tired to fix it... :-)

At risk of taking this thread even further off-topic, I'll throw in my two cents here re good vs bad coders. First, the only GOOD coder I know is a certain D. Knuth, author of Tex among other things. It is often stated that "there are two types of code: Code written by Knuth, and buggy code."

But deities aside, there is something of the linux vs BSD debate here. BSD was written (originally, I mean) by a group of academics who had been working with computers for many, many years... they had lots of experience, knew what they were doing, worked out their design in advance (as much as anyone ever does), and wanted to do a Good Job. And they did: if you read any operating systems textbook, you'll find that BSD is the standard against which everything else is measured.

Linux, on the other hand, was written by a group of university undergrads and high school students, and has very much a "We're going to write an OPERATING SYSTEM!" mentality to it. Linux coders do stuff because it's cool... not because they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on hardware and want to get some useful research out of it.

A Good Coder is someone who 1. Has a goal in mind, 2. Has a plan for getting there, and 3. Has experience. A Bad Coder is someone who 1. Codes because it's cool, 2. Sits down and starts hacking code because planning and architectural design is for weenies, and 3. learned to program in visual basic four years ago when his parents bought him a computer.

I think part of the problem here is that Tim seems to be asserting that vBulletin alone sucks up all the resources associated with it - but the truth is that MySQL is a huge resource hog, especially with hundreds of concurrent users. Comparing UBB and vB from this respect isn't fair as UBB uses it's own system (flat-file) for it's "database", meaning they have complete control over it's resource usage, whereas vBulletin relies on MySQL, which may be extremely resource intensive, but vB has no control over how MySQL is made. So obviously vB is doing something right if it's so much better than UBB in terms of resources yet they don't have control over the major backbone of the product.

tubedogg: I'd agree with you, except that I don't see why vB uses mySQL at all beyond the obvious "too lazy/inept to do it right". It's not as if a complete, slow, database system is *necessary*... UBB demonstrates that clearly (although it unfortunately has its own problem in other areas).

General databases are *slow*. It's a fact of life. Good code doesn't rely on slow databases if they aren't absolutely necessary.

lol, yes i just noticed the one below it, woah - :)
Originally posted by Tim_Greer


This is a far shot from my longest post. if you think that was long, then you don't even want to know...

Originally posted by cperciva
tubedogg: I'd agree with you, except that I don't see why vB uses mySQL at all beyond the obvious "too lazy/inept to do it right".I take offense to that comment. There are many reasons vB uses MySQL - for one it's free and two it's the only one that most hosts install. We are moving towards supporting other databases but each one requires a majority rewrite of the system to take advantage of other RMDBS' particular efficiences and things like stored procedures etc, as well as differences in the SQL implemention (the one that springs to mind is MySQL being the only one who uses LEFT JOIN). vB was originally written as a PHP+MySQL version of UBB to also be sold by IP but when IP wouldn't even talk to John about it he launched it on his own. Launching a system like vB to be a competitor to the UBBs and UltraBoards but making it require Oracle or Sybase would completely defeat the purpose and drive the price through the roof.

It's not as if a complete, slow, database system is *necessary*... UBB demonstrates that clearly (although it unfortunately has its own problem in other areas).Even if the code was cleaned up, UBB would still be very slow (and probably only slightly less resource intensive) because flat-files cannot compare with a RMDBS except for very small projects.

Originally posted by tubedogg
I take offense to that comment.

I decided that Tim might want some company in his quest to offend as many people as humanely possible. ;)


Even if the code was cleaned up, UBB would still be very slow (and probably only slightly less resource intensive) because flat-files cannot compare with a RMDBS except for very small projects.

"Flat files cannot compare with a DMRBS except for very small projects"? Maybe you have a different definition of "flat file" than I do. What do you call it when all of your data is indexed by consecutive integers, and all you have to do in order to get some data is seek to the correct position in a file and start reading? Myself, I call that a flat file, and I also call it much faster than any relational database will ever be.

Yes but that type of system would likely not work with a forum system. And on the scale that UBB claims to be able to handle, or the scale that vB does handle, it likely would not be faster than a database.

Originally posted by tubedogg
Yes but that type of system would likely not work with a forum system.

See those numbers at the top of the screen? The "threadid=" and "postid="? vB already assigns numbers to each post and thread, and without looking at the source code I'd guess that users probably have numeric IDs somewhere behind the scenes.

And on the scale that UBB claims to be able to handle, or the scale that vB does handle, it likely would not be faster than a database.

Well, I obviously disagree. But since we both lack concrete evidence and I'm too lazy to code up a demonstration, I suggest we let the issue of database design drop here.

Im sorry, but there is no comparison between UBB and vB - pants down, vB wins :p

Originally posted by cperciva
...I suggest we let the issue of database design drop here.Fine. Back to the topic at hand - you ignored many of my other points, such as
Launching a system like vB to be a competitor to the UBBs and UltraBoards but making it require Oracle or Sybase would completely defeat the purpose and drive the price through the roof.You suggest that MySQL is horrid for this purpose but there is really nothing else either a) supported in terms of hosting or b) in the same price range. Yes there's PostgreSQL but can you name 5 hosts that have it installed? Oracle and Sybase basically require (a) dedicated server(s) (I can't even name *one* host that has shared Oracle hosting...) and are astronomically priced. You don't pay $169 for forum software and install it on a $50000 database system.

NB: I wasn't claiming that UBB was better than vB. vB is much better, and faster. But vB could still be improved upon.

tubedogg... my whole point was that for a forum, a RDBMS database simply isn't necessary. Yes, mySQL is the most available of RDBMS solutions, and even has decent performance... but here I think it's the right solution to the wrong problem.

If everyone here is so into recommending Aletia, then can someone answer me why I signed up over 2 days ago and still NO ACCOUNT? Are they usually this slow or am I just one unlucky baster.

Well, I got a message from them saying that they are in the process of setting up my account. All I know is that their process of taking money out of my VISA card is pretty quick. At least I am very impressed with that.

Originally posted by Da Red Monkey
If everyone here is so into recommending Aletia, then can someone answer me why I signed up over 2 days ago and still NO ACCOUNT? Are they usually this slow or am I just one unlucky baster.

Well, I got a message from them saying that they are in the process of setting up my account. All I know is that their process of taking money out of my VISA card is pretty quick. At least I am very impressed with that.


sometimes you get what you pay for :)
i'm not going to be surprised if they will be the next Tacidhost. :)

Originally posted by Da Red Monkey
If everyone here is so into recommending Aletia, then can someone answer me why I signed up over 2 days ago and still NO ACCOUNT? Are they usually this slow or am I just one unlucky baster.
Da Red Monkey,

As already mentioned in the email sent to you, as well as at the Announcements forum at www.AletiaForums.com (which was also mentioned in that email), we are setting up a brand new machine (cheetah) and are getting all new accounts on it once it's up and running, which is expected to happen this evening.

Many of our existing clients will tell you that our usual account setup time is extremely quick and they're often setup within hours, sometimes even within minutes, but certainly always within 24 hours.

The reason for the current unusual delay in the processing of new order requests is that orders have been coming in extremely quickly over the past few days and it has always been our policy not to overload any of our machines, which is why we're ordering additional machines to cater to the new orders (yours being one of them).

The reason why you were billed immediately upon signup is due to the way PaySystems (our third-party billing company) works. Although you were billed immediately for the initial transaction, the next billing will only occur 30 days after your account has actually been setup.

If you are in a hurry to have your account setup or are unhappy about this unusual delay even with the full explanation provided via our email to you, please send us an email and we would be happy to initiate a full refund.

In any case, my sincere apologies for the delay and hope this helps.

Mark Vockler
Aletia Hosting

Originally posted by Mark Vockler

which is why we're ordering additional machines to cater to the new orders (yours being one of them).



The reason you have given is not good enough, you should have ordered these server/s long time ago to cope with the demand. When starting a hosting co. you *Must* have a spare machine ready for deployment or for backup purposes.

We have a spare redhat box w/plesk in case....
Always have a spare box on hand bec. you never know when you'll need it.

Originally posted by elijah
The reason you have given is not good enough, you should have ordered these server/s long time ago to cope with the demand. When starting a hosting co. you *Must* have a spare machine ready for deployment or for backup purposes.

We have a spare redhat box w/plesk in case....
Always have a spare box on hand bec. you never know when you'll need it.
We have a spare box all the time, and as I had already mentioned earlier, orders have been coming in extremely quickly over the past few days, so our (previously) spare box had filled up pretty fast.

We had already placed orders for additional machines when we begun setting up accounts on the spare box, but there was a shipping delay on the new boxes which delayed the configuration and testing of the new machines.

In any case, we have been keeping all new account holders in the loop (via email follow-ups as well as our community forums) about the latest updates and when they can expect to have their accounts up and running.

Also as stated in my previous post, any client who for any reason whatsoever isn't satisfied with this or anything else can always request for a full refund, not only right now but also anytime within the first 30 days from the date of the actual account setup.

If there are any further inquiries with regards to this matter, please feel free to send me an email at mark@aletia.net.

Mark Vockler
Aletia Hosting

Like I said in my other post, you *must* have a spare box that will be used for emergency or to cope with the huge demand.

You said you filled your spare box within the last few days? you mean you had 300signups in 4days ? :cool:

What do you mean by delayed in shipping?
last time I checked you have leased servers at http://pwebtech.com or is my information not correct? :)

Originally posted by elijah
You said you filled your spare box within the last few days? you mean you had 300signups in 4days ? :cool:
I'll leave the calculations to you. ;) None of our machines have that many accounts per server, though.

Originally posted by elijah
What do you mean by delayed in shipping?
last time I checked you have leased servers at http://pwebtech.com or is my information not correct? :)
Pegasus doesn't build machines per se, these need to be shipped.

Mark Vockler
Aletia Hosting

Originally posted by Mark Vockler

I'll leave the calculations to you. ;) None of our machines have that many accounts per server, though.


Pegasus doesn't build machines per se, these need to be shipped.

Mark Vockler
Aletia Hosting


huh?
last time I checked your servers are leased servers from http://pwebtech.com

.. reminds me of urgenthost.com..i won't be surprised..:D

Originally posted by elijah
last time I checked your servers are leased servers from http://pwebtech.com
They are leased from Pegasus. What gave you the impression that they aren't?

Originally posted by elijah
.. reminds me of urgenthost.com..i won't be surprised..:D
What does urgenthost have to do with this?

Mark

Mark is correct, all pending/newly signed up customers have been updated frequently as to the status of their account setup. I am one of these people, so I know.

Elijah,
Why are you so concerned about this issue? Are you waiting for an account to be setup also or just trying to make a host (competitor) look bad?

I personally don't see the big deal waiting an extra few days for a virtual hosting account to be setup. Especially when most of them are probably the 9.95 special deal they have going on. It's not like everyone's waiting on their dedicated servers that they were just billed $300.00 for to be set up.

My hat's off to you Mark for keeping your cool and remaining professional and not being provoked into an uglyl argument that benefits nobody.

jericho

Urgenthost is some host who went out of business ..they were offering some dirt cheap hosting like your $9 plan with 10GB bandwidth :D. cmon lets face it you cannot offer 10GB bandwidth.

I have a high traffic site that is using around 75GB per month , can i sign up 7 accounts with you for only 70 per month ? that will save me around 300 per month.

Don't tell me that it will use a lot of server resources b/c i can prove it that it only uses a lot of Bandwidth not server resources.

Let me know :D

oh i don't need domain hosting , only an IP and ftp for my accounts :)

Let me know where to sign up , i can use some extra 70GB transfer per month that is only $1 per GB.

Thanks :D

Elijah,

when you make a comment such as:
----> i'm not going to be surprised if they will be the next Tacidhost.
I think you should be prepared to back that up with some facts. I have searched this forum and don't see the basis for your comments. What are you basing that comment on?
Look at this thread for example:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=14350

Even if you disregard all of the Dogma comments, (just because of how extreme they are, I would do the same if there was 1 user in here who had a large number of negative posts) I think it's safe to say that they are a reputable host.

I think everybody knows that they are counting on most sites not utilizing the 10GB bandwidth. I know I will never approach it. I needed a good affordable plan for our church's website and will be surpised if we use 10GB a year.

jericho

I'm not going to be surprised if they will be the next UrgentHost :D

Offering something that is next to impossible.
Like I said, i will take him up on is generous 10GB bandwidth allowance and I will also tell all my friends to sign up and use all the 10GB bandwidth available , let's see who will be in business in the next 6 months.

Registrar: Go Daddy Software (http://registrar.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ALETIA.NET
Created on: 18-Feb-01
Expires on: 19-Feb-02
Last Updated on: 21-Feb-01

===

Registrar: Go Daddy Software (http://registrar.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ALETIAHOSTING.NET
Created on: 02-Mar-01
Expires on: 02-Mar-02
Last Updated on: 13-Jun-01


sure Jericho.. :)

Who let the troll out?

:rolleyes:

I didn't know Colin is a troll :eek4:

What is the whois information supposed to prove? So according to that information you believe that they plan on only being in business until February 2002? I don't get it. I think it's a great idea to register domains on a year to year basis in case you find better deals. As an example, I'm glad I only registered my register.com domains for a year because I was able to move them over to Dotster for 11.95 recently.

Anyway, I didn't ask you for whois information. I asked you for examples of them being the next tacidblue or urgenthost. Couldn't find any or you didn't bother to search.

Why are you so bothered by their success?

jericho

Originally posted by elijah
Registrar: Go Daddy Software (http://registrar.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ALETIA.NET
Created on: 18-Feb-01
Expires on: 19-Feb-02
Last Updated on: 21-Feb-01

===

Registrar: Go Daddy Software (http://registrar.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: ALETIAHOSTING.NET
Created on: 02-Mar-01
Expires on: 02-Mar-02
Last Updated on: 13-Jun-01


sure Jericho.. :)

Simply put it this way, you said something about them being a good host. Do you have any Long Term experience with them ? NOT. Aletia is a new company and could go bankrupt ...

I am not bothered by their failure :D
Open your eyes bro, Can you tell me a very good reason to go with a Host that offers me 10GB plus the whole world for nothing? His hosting plans are the same as those unlimited hosts.

It amazes me that you can post such venomous comments littered with so many smilies. You seem to alternate randomly between providing data with no relevance to the situation and vague references to failed hosting companies. I'm glad that the good people at Aletia have had the class to not respond to your obvious troll remarks.

The only comments you've made that approach making sense are those regarding the bandwidth. I think it's pretty safe to say that if account on any host maxed out their bandwidth that host would feel a financial strain. Every host operates on a sort of bell curve philosophy, and when you think through it the concept is sound. It's not just the hosting business either: banks, grocery stores, video rental places, the stock market, the Fed, all these (to varying extents) depend on the fact that utilization of resources doesn't approach capacity. I would be surprised if 2% of Aletia's clients ever come close to using the full resources of their account.

If Aletia is buying new servers to meet increased needs, then good for them! Your account on their new server will be on brand new hardware, with a clean install of everything. There are numerous examples of companies that expanded too fast, but I highly doubt the smart people at Aletia will make that mistake.

I will admit that you're very unique in one respect: you're the first Aletia customer I've heard of that's unhappy. I've received such good service from Aletia in the months I've dealt with them that I actually feel personally insulted by your comments. If you dislike the company so much, just take your business elsewhere. They've already offered you a full refund.

Originally posted by elijah
I didn't know Colin is a troll :eek4:Oh you really put me in my place :rolleyes:
Originally posted by elijah
Simply put it this way, you said something about them being a good host. Do you have any Long Term experience with them ? NOT. Aletia is a new company and could go bankrupt ...Yeah...that's the way it should be...any host that hasn't been in the business for more than a year must shut down and refund all their customers NOW :rolleyes:

By the way, have YOU had any experience with them (whether it be long or short term)? Or are you just a jealous competitor?
Originally posted by elijah
I am not bothered by their failure :DUh huh...you're just bothered by their success :)

I'm surprised that this thread hasn't been deleted or locked yet.

SaxMatt - Aletia is Not buying new servers they Only leased it thru Pwebtech. What I was saying is they may go out of business for giving too much bandwidth allowance like the Urgenthost guy... I am concerned with the customers.. what will happen 6,7,8,9 months down the road...

Colin - huh?
why should I be jealous when we 've been in the business since 1999 :) and we currently have 8 (own) coLocated servers and 1 dedicated server and our business is doing great :)

Hosting companies that gives out too much bandwidth for nothing will most likely fail and don't come in these forums and complain if they'll go out of business soon..

I'm not going to respond to this thread anymore, I stand corrected , if they continue to offer 10GB for only 9 per month they will fail.

:)

Although I understand Eli's comments, I think you have to realize that almost *every* host oversells space and transfer amounts and really it is just a matter of how much you want to oversell it. I'm not talking about 'unlimited' as that's purely not relevant to hosting services. Let's not go there.

Fact is that many hosts offer high levels of space and transfer (oversell quite a bit) and they are still around, and if it became a problem, I'd expect to see higher setup fees and monthly fees for new accounts, before a host would shut down completely.

I am sorry to bring this up, but I feel I must. I have been accused by elijah of creating a new user name and attacking him. This is untrue. Infact, there is no evidence whatsoever to support any of his claims.
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He shows a WHOIS................so what?
Tacid was famous for not communicating and helping their customers, but Aletia has taken the time to help me install a board and help me
They are not a fly by night get rich co. which is proved by a) Their great support b) Their move to NAC.net so that we had better uptime
I have talked to Pegasus and they are able to sell bandwidth for a very reasonable price depending on how much you buy
I personally pay for a $16 package and I use at the most 2 gigs of transfer, costing them, $4 bandwidth (at the $2/ gig price) and perhapes $6 of other stuff, support, etc for a profit of at least $6 on me after cost.
What does urganthost have to do w/ this?!?! Many candy stores sell candy for cheap, but if one goes out of business it doesn't mean the others are going to!
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essentaily, you have used your own perverse logic to convince yourself of something that satisfies you with almost no evidence whatsoever to support your claim.

Stop acting like the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore. If you are going to make a claim, back it up with evidence. Since you don't have any, stop flaming a good host.