Thank you everyone for your information on hosting companies. (And that new wiki page is cool, though needs comments from people now.)
I decided to take a two pronged approach: cheap low priority storage at a shared host plus a fanatical developer-loving vps host. So I signed up at hostgator.com for their Baby package, $10/mo. with the first free from a coupon. This is 100GB and a terabyte of bandwidth, for a couple family sites and to serve video content perhaps. For the VPS host I am deciding between linode and slicehost, I'd start with 10GB. Slicehost is a 5 week wait, or 2 weeks if you pay 6 months up front. It sounds quite cool, heck I want it bad, but from a place that says no initial payment it give me a funny feeling. I mean, I used to run a hosting company myself (in 1995, Tokyo) so I know what they mean when they mention cashflow and hardware. They probably will have great service since that is their main thing, and I hope Google or somebody smart invests in them. There must be some rich hackers in the vicinity. It was not clear from either linode or slicehost what tools are recommended for ordinary operations. A graphic login might have too much latency from here. Perhaps webmin.. what I mean is root is fine for apache configs but some things I'd like to use a web interface for example to quickly change user email aliasing or whatever, if it's plesk or whm or HSPComplete or webmin, fine. I suppose some examples of common administration would be useful, they both mention custom interfaces but I can't tell what. Linode though has a he.com data center which means I can shave 50-100ms off latency to Japan if I pick them so I am leaning toward them.for the catalyst vps... though I am wondering if slicehost has the more advanced infrastructure, and maybe linode has more handholding? Tough call, maybe should get both? I like slicehost's attitude and their extra backup service, but also I've been watching Hurricaine Electric for a long time so ++ for linode. At any rate there has to be something said for any company that can get you running the next day.. I already have 100GB now at hostgator even if it is a cpanel site, and I don't know if I trust their hard disks to stay up, but they do seem to have most positive reviews at webhostingunleashed among shared hosts. Oh well, more agonizing to do now but now I can enjoy it in a bittersweet way thanks to all of you. Regards to all, Matt Rosin _______________________________________________ List: Catalyst@lists.rawmode.org Listinfo: http://lists.rawmode.org/mailman/listinfo/catalyst Searchable archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/catalyst@lists.rawmode.org/ Dev site: http://dev.catalyst.perl.org/