I am looking for a host for one of my websites.

I would rather not pay more than 100$ per month.
To stay within budget.
And it HAS to be Windows.


Here is what i need.
100% Essential.

ASP Support.
20Gigs BandWidth (The more the better)
Microsoft SQL 7.0 Database
150Megs Space or more.


Those are what i really need.
Of course i need some of the basics such as emails, ftp and all.
But i assume every host has those with their plans.

Im ready to signup tonight.
Ill take the first decent offer!

Thanks!
Trevor

take a look @ www.m6.net I haven't had experiance with them but in general you should get something like that for a lot cheaper then $100, more like $60 (at the really high end) and more probably lower. Search this forum for companies that post offers here to get comments on them.

they have awesome plans!

Anybody had any experiences with them?
Thanks

Originally posted by Trevor
they have awesome plans!

Anybody had any experiences with them?
Thanks

We had a really *bad* experince with M6, and would *never* even *think* of going back to them again, even if they paid *us* to host there!

Our first problem was that M6 didn't really have the server components installed that they had advertised. It took weeks to get the components installed (we were 1st told we'd have to *pay* to have them installed). Then there were the down-times -- lots and *lots* of down-time. Typically, the server our sites were hosted on would crash a dozens of times each day, and be down anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours per day. In fact our sites were down for over 6 hours per day, on *many* days and sometimes as long as 36 hours at a time. E-mailing tech support dozens upon dozens of times produced no solutions, and the fact that English seems to be a 2nd language for most of their support staff didn't help. The ultimate rub was when M6 shut down our sites (without warning) for a 24+ hour period while they "checked our code" after we complained about down-times (M6's reasoning was that we must be causing the problem ourselves).

After moving our sites to a *reliable* NT host, we've been running the same ASP code for months with extremely little down-time, for just a *little* more than M6's prices. The bottom line is that M6 has cheap prices, but very little else! BEWARE!!!!!!!!!

thanks for the advice ;)

whats this 'other' host you are using?
id like to check it out!

The "other host" is CrystalTech.com. We'd had 99% uptime (not bothering to count beyond the "last 1%") for months. We can call anytime, and get a real-live person on the other end, and have received "real answers" to all of our inquiries to date. E-mail inquires usually are answered typically within an hour, and sometimes even less. CrystalTech has an "open" support forum at http://www.webcontrolcenter.com/forum/ ... reading thru the messages there can probably give you an idea of the level of "customer satisfaction" at CrystalTech from other persons' point-of-view... ;)

technoart,

I checked your history and have to admit that the server, your site was faced some problem. No offence but our support did offer you to move your whole account on different server, with no response from your side.

We do charge $10 installation fee for installing custom component on our server and its clearly mentioned on our site. What wrong if we asked you to pay for it.

Which component we do advertise and don't support. I won't argue on this one and asking only for my information just to make sure that either we remove it from our web site or we install it on our server.

FYI: your site was shut down without notice because we received a charge back; yes "CHARGE BACK” from you.

Note: yes three of our staffs, including me, are from non-English speaking country. I don’t understand why some people are offended by non-English speaking people.

Look, you *really* don't want me to air the *whole* sorted tale about our string-of-problems with M6, do you? Unless you want the folks in this forum to hear the *real* details of your "service" I'd suggest you cut your loses now... and let it lie... :)

On just the one subject: You advertised an NT image component as being available, and it yet wasn't installed on the server. We inquired as to why. We were told, it really wasn't available, but we could *pay* to have it installed. We then asked why you advertised something you didn't seem able to supply. Then we were told by another person that it *was* installed. Then we were told it wasn't, but that we could *pay* to have it installed. Etc. Etc. Etc. This "debate" went on for weeks, and finally it was installed without cost to us. This was when we first mentioned the fact that we didn't intend on paying (full price) for something we hadn't received... (but that had been advertised as being installed).

Meanwhile, we had paid to have a image component installed so we could use ASP scripts that required the component that *should* have been installed all along. Then you uninstalled the component because you claimed it "had a bug", a mis-founded belief caused because someone at your site (mis) read the author's web page in which he stated something to the effect of, "download the latest version that solves bugs found in the previous version...", something you'll find with most any software. It was an *update*!

This whole "experience" was a comedy of errors... Look, I don't give a rip as to what language is anyone's 1st language, but I *do* want my problems solved when I'm paying for that service. This admitted "English as a 2nd language" problem was apparently the reason why we had many of our seeminly un-ending series of problems with M6, and I gather from your reaction to my posting that you *still* don't understand what the heck we're talking about.

On the other subject, you were told that we were closing our account and the "charge back" was due to your billing us for a month *after* we had closed the account. Apparently, you didn't understand us???? The "shut down" I referred to was when you shut down our site for 24+ hours prior to our leaving to "check our code", and this was the final straw that caused us to decide to leave your site. The "problem with our code" that you claimed was that we were opening databases and not closing them. This was not true, but 24+ hours after you finished going through all of our ASP code, you admitted there was no problem. Arrrrrghhh!

We asked, begged and even suggested that we would upgrade our account if you would move us to another server -- something that *never* occurried, but that we were told, several times, had been done. Then, another tech would admit that we were still on the same server as we'd always been. Arrrrrrrghhh!

With our sites being down for hours almost every day, e-mail nott working, and a list of other problems, we told you more than once that we expected billing adjustments, which never were made. We left M6 ASAP, after telling you we were leaving, and giving you our reasons in no uncertain words. Arrrrrrghhh!

duplicate... sorry

You sound like you are offended and giving sort of threat.

If you will read my post you will find that I did admit what was wrong from our side and do expect it from you.

Regarding charge back... I will confirm with billing if it was only for one month (which you believe say was charged after you cancel the account) or for whole period from a day you started with us. Will comment only after getting information.

Once again I am sorry about our English. All I can say is that we are learning and improving everyday.

Aloha
curious as I am always looking at win2k hosting but looked at the m6 plans and they look good then I read this thread and got a big red flag stratight from M6
this is the kind of support I do not want

I checked your history and have to admit that the server, your site was faced some problem. No offence but our support did offer you to move your whole account on different server, with no response from your side.


why did you not move everybody off a server that was having probs ???
you wanted them to notice then you send them email and say yeah we are having problems but we wont move you without your permission.
if somebody signs up with you isn't it your duty to give them the best service possible ???

this kind of stuff enrages me with the human race anymore nobody caring

your response ??

Trevor,

i reccomend m6.net, they are a great company, and as you see the owner frequently visits this forum.

Kindest Regards,
ValuableHost

Originally posted by m6.net
You sound like you are offended and giving sort of threat.


The only "threat" by me, is to continue to expose the record of our experience with M6. The whole story is extremely long and sorted, quite literally long enough to be a made-for-TV-movie about a Web hosting company from hell.

:angry:

Hi Trevor

How much SQL space do you need?

Thanks

Originally posted by m6.net
Note: yes three of our staffs, including me, are from non-English speaking country. I don’t understand why some people are offended by non-English speaking people.

I don't think anyone is offended. However, people may get upset if they can't communicate with the tech support because of language barriers. It seems part of the problem is your tech support didn't fully understand technoart's problems, and vice-versa. If you're providing services to English-speaking customers, you need to make sure the people answering their inquiries are proficient enough in the language to be able to comprehend what the customer is saying.

i need at least 10megs for the SQL Database.
But if its 10, it would need to be upgradeable.
(im ready to pay for that)

Thanks.

Hi Trevor

I sent you a PM, did you see it?

10 MB is no problem

Thanks

i replied.

As I admitted before, yes we had problem in last December with one of our servers and agree that you (technoart) faced problems with your site. Your complaints are acceptable up to large extent and some of the information is due to exaggeration, I believe. But as a matter of fact, you did face problems with us and we really feel bad for that. We sincerely apologies for all the inconvenience occurred to you.

We lost few other clients at that time and did refund them… Sorry that I took your post little bit personally due to 2 reasons.

1. Charge back
2. English language comment.

Here are our director’s words.

“Yes we did have problems with our services as you mentioned. And I would like to personally apologize for those experiences.

Many problems we faced were due to problems with the mailserver and many support emails were not received by us and therefore we were unable to reply.

Most of the time I instructed staff to compensate clients downtime with an offering of a free month. There was much confusion amongst staff and yes we lost many clients.

The crux of the problem was the mailserver and after repeated attempts to work with SmartMax we dumped the server and installed IMAIL from Ipwsitch which has been running without a problem. We faced much stress, late night, frustration and upset. We were users of a product that failed us. But we know that our clients care little for this and they simply wanted service. After this experience I had had enough of suffering other people problems and got to work on all the fine details.

Regularly we review all procedures, support, administration, billing, server and network maintenance, bandwidth etc. In December due to the massive amount of problems I reviewed every detail of our offering and reconstructed all procedures, revised staff positions and responsibilities and increased training. Within a month the reorganization took effect and since February we have been running very smoothly.

As to our English as a second language staff. We have found these people to be the most reliable, hard working and dedicated people with a high degree of technical skill. We have been training these people to help improve their English written and spoken skills and see this as an investment in people who really do care for the business and what it does. Rather than paying people who come in take the money and do as little as they have to. We have had many support staff who have cared little about client needs and they had a very short tenure with us.

As any who are associated with the web hosting industry understands, this is a new industry that is still maturing. As a web host at times one is a "pig -in-the-middle" having to make server products designed for enterprises work with open networks and also work with different types and standards of client code with different database backends. This can be a melting pot for disaster without the right procedures and understanding of how to deal with the problems... this can only come from hard experience and dedication to training and retraining. Since all our hard experiences, dedication to what we offer and persistence, I can stand strong knowing that our team is more than capable of dealing with the problems that we face in the industry from day-to-day and unexpected peak times.

I would like to personally apologize for your bad experience with us. I know what I have said is very little that will change your views unless you were to experience the good results we learnt from those hard times. But as always there are reasons why things go bad... we learnt from them, improved and have grown stronger.

Most Sincerely,
Michael Guilfoyle"

Originally posted by Planet Z


I don't think anyone is offended. However, people may get upset if they can't communicate with the tech support because of language barriers. It seems part of the problem is your tech support didn't fully understand technoart's problems, and vice-versa. If you're providing services to English-speaking customers, you need to make sure the people answering their inquiries are proficient enough in the language to be able to comprehend what the customer is saying.

Thanks Planet Z... I understand. FYI: Our directors and other staff, except 3, are with English as their mother language.