the saga continues...it was 4 weeks now it is 4 months since I have seen a hosting platform that works...shoot me.

I have sites that need attention (perl needs modification) since we moved them to a buddies high speed line; old friend, young student, works for a publisher and hates bush...profile him and if you look up the word paranoid in the dictionary, there's his picture.

I learned apache here (started here with those lessons, thanks choon) and then mail enable and in 4 weeks was hosting from home...worked like a charm...but uh, isp got bent so moved it to a dsl line at friends.

this guy...three login screens to get to the server.

passwords are cryptic and rotate daily...

claims 100 hacks from china per day on ip addy...

i can't get directly to the server but have to go through a pc and vnc in from there.

vnc isn't always up. i email him to get a session.

if i am not super nice, the profanity begins in a heartbeat...he's uh, tempermental...

he's pulled the plug twice in 2 months when I simply asked if there was an easier way to get on, get the job done, get off without using him as a gatekeeper...since he likes to explode if I can't get a session and he's 10 miles away.

so realistically, don't cha just mount the server, put up a firewall and change the passwords once a month or so? max?

or should I be thankful he goes to all this trouble yet since I can't work on the sites (4 months now I haven't gotten any LONG session times without something hosing/crashing/not rebooting etc.) would I be better to find a third party with high speed who wants a free server and space and they handle the stuff at their end? what does co-lo cost? any ideas on this?

would you enshroud your server in so much security your own development team can't work?

that is the question that is really drilling me right now.