My Holiday Gift to TalkPHP
 

I'm definitely going to be using this site more often because most of my issues with PHP get resolved right here. Therefore, I wanted to offer this gift exclusively to the members of TalkPHP

In January, I'm launching a webhosting company to provide affordable hosting. I will be selling my "unlimited" plan for 12.95/mo to new signups. But for users on here, until my launch on January 30, 2010, I want to offer the same hosting for a one time setup of $10. There is no monthly fee or hidden charges. Just $10 and the account is yours to keep. This package includes the following:

• Unlimited MB Disk Space
• Unlimited MB Bandwidth
• Unlimited Email Accounts
• Unlimited Mailing Lists
• Unlimited FTP Accounts
• Unlimited MySQL Databases (no space limit on each DB)
• Unlimited Sub-Domains
• Unlimited Addon Domains
• Latest cPanel
• Remote MySQL
• phpMyAdmin
• PHP 5
• Perl / CGI Support
• Ruby On Rails
• SSH (Shell Access)
• Fantastico (With Over 50 Scripts!)

The only reason for the cost is to help raise some funds for additional staff as we have 5 members currently managing it. I have the server pre-paid for the next 5 years and I'd love to have my first members from this site.

Below is the link to the order page (I haven't skinned it yet but I have tested and made sure that paypal activates the account as soon as payment is received.)

I will also be linking TalkPHP on the support section of my webhosting site as the recommended site for collaboration projects and resolution for PHP issues.

http://pixelsidehost.com/order/browse_products.php

Thanks for all the help in the past everyone and I hope your holidays are safe and wonderful this year.

If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to reply them here.

Best Regards,
Saint Isaiah

Great to hear about your launch and I hope everything goes well with it.
And Thanks for the offer, I will certainly register and test it out.
One question though, how would you know the people registering are from TalkPHP before your launch?
But again congrats on the hosting project. :)

Thanks Tony. I'm only posting the plan up here so only people who view this site will see the hosting. If people who didn't register see this, that's fine. I just want it to be offered only directly on TalkPHP. But if anyone would like to fill out the "How did you find us?" form field with "TalkPHP" that would be appreciated.

As I find myself asking most unlimited hosts, how do you do it? Softlayer (your provider, correct?) does not offer anything like that.

Nope, not Softlayer. Hosting24 actually. I've been playing around with them for a while and the service is very reliable.

They place a 2TB hard drive in every time the free space drops below 10%. After having a chat with their support, they told me if I had all my customers reach the absolute max capacity on the shared box, they would move me to a dedicated one and let me use it as a dedicated server for no additional cost.

As far as the bandwidth, I believe it. They have unmetered connections to each box. Most hosts get unlimited bandwidth from their internet provider nowadays.

Sounds expensive. Amazing that you would allow anyone to do that for $12 a month.

Unlimited FTP Accounts

Security risk. Turn it off and use sFTP.

Remote MySQL

Security risk. Bind it to your local loopback, or run it off an internal IP.

Be careful of any host that offers you 'too good to be true' plans at ridiculously low rates. Bargain servers are usually that, bargain servers. I'll stick with Linode (used to be Slicehost, but they're starting to suck bad). Other than that, I wish you the best with your startup, and I hope you're successful!

Well keep in mind, I'm not selling Reseller accounts. Just hosting accounts. I was with HostGator for 2 years with my webhosting and the monthly cost was only 14.95/mo. My hosting is to compete with the big providers but pay the same amount for month-to-month service rather than pre-pay for a year or more of service. Again, I'm offering the hosting for a one-time $10 setup. I'm sure that anyone signing up from here will be completely satisfied with the hosting.

The FTP accounts can be set to secure or normal.

The mysql server is running on an internal IP. by saying "Remote MySQL" I am referring to the SQL databases running on a separate machine on the same internal network, to improve loading times.

I appreciate your concern, but I spent months researching my reseller provider before signing up. They have the same security practices and server integrity as some of the other big providers (HostGator, IXWebhosting, 1and1) but for a more affordable cost on my end.

I think I might not be completely following here - are they managing the servers, or are you? What kind of access do you have on the actual machine? Do you have root to keep things up to date, run your own firewall, et al, or do you have to rely on them to do it for you?

I hope I'm not coming across wrong here, I'm not trying to rain on your parade, just curious about what you're up to. :) I was considering selling off some of my unused space on a few of the servers I manage, but honestly I don't think I want to deal with the hassle of running the sites I already run (including an MU startup) and having to deal with the unknown variables hosting other people presents. Too busy already.

They are managing the servers. I am paying a premium for a staff member to directly take care of my special needs on the server. I unfortunately don't always have the time to keep everything up to date, so paying the premium definitely helps to keep everything running smoothly.

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and good luck on your business venture. Hope everything goes well and that it becomes profitable

Thanks Hikari, you as well! :-)