Host me tender, host me true, never let me down.
I'm a web host.
A small one, admittedly, I only host clients I also work directly for. Sure, I had plans to expand, but there are a few gotchas I wanted to make sure were taken care of first.
The Billing....
The first one was making sure I had a billing and payment system that was not only going to actually work, but be easy to maintain and easy to use. So I looked around and settled on Modernbill. It's a fairly comprehensive package, supports numerous payment options and is quite customisable. Sweet. So I bought the 100 user version with a view to upgrading.
So it only supports the old version of 2Checkout (My chosen credit card processor), ah. I have a new account. Ummm...... PayPal it is then.....
Easy to use, sure, for geeks like me. I do not have a single customer who knows how to use the damn thing, so much for automation. Of course that may be my fault, I do tend to simply 'take care' of most of my clients problems, it's easier than education anyday.
Easy to update? Not on your nelly. Easier to reinstall every time more like. And thats not that easy.
Hosting the host.....
I don't have enough customers with large demands on bandwidth to justify a dedicated, real server. So I use a VPS. I did have two with a company called Tektonic, but after a few un-announced server outages for up to a day, they went one better. They lost everything, data and backups. Whats worse, despite logging a ticket, emailing them and attempting to call them, they stayed silent, not even to say there was a problem. It took eight days for their boss to say anything. And he wasnt addressing me, he was limiting the damage he had and giving it rock all with the sales patter on a public forum. Take my advice and stay away from Tektonic and Unixshell#, they are both run by the same guy. You can visit WebHostingTalk.com to check up on a hosts reputation if you are looking for one. Suffice to say I was very carefull in selecting a new host.
Always look on the bright side of life......
I have access to a reliable web designer (http://www.4design.tv), I can code in PHP, and I'm my own server admin/tech so I'm otherwise pretty well set. Once I have an affordable semi redundant hosting set up I'm good to go.
A small one, admittedly, I only host clients I also work directly for. Sure, I had plans to expand, but there are a few gotchas I wanted to make sure were taken care of first.
The Billing....
The first one was making sure I had a billing and payment system that was not only going to actually work, but be easy to maintain and easy to use. So I looked around and settled on Modernbill. It's a fairly comprehensive package, supports numerous payment options and is quite customisable. Sweet. So I bought the 100 user version with a view to upgrading.
So it only supports the old version of 2Checkout (My chosen credit card processor), ah. I have a new account. Ummm...... PayPal it is then
Easy to use, sure, for geeks like me. I do not have a single customer who knows how to use the damn thing, so much for automation. Of course that may be my fault, I do tend to simply 'take care' of most of my clients problems, it's easier than education anyday.
Easy to update? Not on your nelly. Easier to reinstall every time more like. And thats not that easy.
Hosting the host.....
I don't have enough customers with large demands on bandwidth to justify a dedicated, real server. So I use a VPS. I did have two with a company called Tektonic, but after a few un-announced server outages for up to a day, they went one better. They lost everything, data and backups. Whats worse, despite logging a ticket, emailing them and attempting to call them, they stayed silent, not even to say there was a problem. It took eight days for their boss to say anything. And he wasnt addressing me, he was limiting the damage he had and giving it rock all with the sales patter on a public forum. Take my advice and stay away from Tektonic and Unixshell#, they are both run by the same guy. You can visit WebHostingTalk.com to check up on a hosts reputation if you are looking for one. Suffice to say I was very carefull in selecting a new host.
Always look on the bright side of life......
I have access to a reliable web designer (http://www.4design.tv), I can code in PHP, and I'm my own server admin/tech so I'm otherwise pretty well set. Once I have an affordable semi redundant hosting set up I'm good to go.
posted by OMaHTLD at
8:20 pm
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