Based on the recommendations on the list I gave DreamHost a spin this week. I went with the "Code Monster" Level 3 plan, prepaid for 2 yrs. I also found the promo code "FLY" I found on the web, which gave me an additional $97 off. For those of you without calculators handy, that's $11.90/month.
PROs ==== * Really amazing value for the price. - 60 GB (yes GIGAbyte) storage space, which increases by 480MB every week you stay a customer. They don't care how you use the storage ("as long as it's legal," a rep told me) and yes, you can back up your hard drive there and they won't care. - 1.6 TB (TERAbytes) monthly transfer, which increases by 16GB every week you stay a customer. This means you could download your entire site 26 times a month. - Host unlimited domains - Unlimited SQL databases - One free domain registration - Telnet/SSH access - No signup fee when you go with 1yr or 2yrs * Some nice goodies - Directly manage your own custom DNS (e.g., map "home.yourdomain.com" to the IP address of your home server) - Ruby on Rails - Supports Revolution CGI - RealMedia and QuickTime streaming * Some interesting support options - See all the tickets you have opened and all the support communications you've received in a central "Support History" area - A "public" DreamHost suggestions area where people can request features and vote on them - Very Good communication about system status, via the http://dreamhoststatus.com site * Other - The DreamHost "rewards" program. Anyone can make these $97 off promocodes and also get credit toward their own bill (or cash). [No, the "FLY" promo code is not mine.] - (Hyper)Active user community. DreamHost has a very large group of users and they seem to be very active in the forums at http://discussions.dreamhost.com. - 97-day refund guarantee. CONs ==== * Uneven support - No phone number you can call. All support has to be initiated from their web page via the electronic form. - Inconsistent response time. A couple of my queries were answered within 1 or 2 hours. A couple are still sitting there more than 24 hours old. - My very first request for support after opening my account requested a callback, and the representative who answered said that my account wasn't entitled to any callbacks. (Probably due to the newness of the account, but STILL! I'm entitled to three, and it took me writing multiple times to finally get someone to call me.) - Limit of three "callbacks" per month with the CodeMonster plan, less with other plans. This means that you can speak to a human being only three times, even if it's a problem that's their fault. I don't think that once things settle down that I would have to call them at all. But during the first month of service I think 3 callbacks is inadequate. - The person who did call me back was professional and very helpful. * Transfer speed - My previous host maxes out my cable modem during transfers in either direction. Using FileZilla (excellent free FTP client) I get uploads around 90+ KB/sec and downloads around 95KB/sec to 100KB/sec with my 8000K/768K Comcast connection. DreamHost never went above 70KB/sec uploading and was an anemic 650KB/sec to 700KB/sec when downloading. * EMail Policies For several years, I've enjoyed a setup where sending mail to <anything>(at)wjm.org reaches my inbox. I've took advantage of this by registering under aliases at any site that requires a registration. For example, runrev(at)wjm.org, apple(at)wjm.org, and so on. This lets me set up email filters very easily... an organization often sends mail from different addresses so it can be a pain to trap for every one of them. But I can always direct mail sent to microsoft(at)wjm.org to the "Microsoft" folder in my email client. If an organization turns out to be a "bad apple" and sends me spam or gives my address to a spammer, I can very easily "kill" that address and send a complaint email. I also had used SpamAssassin to filter out my junk email in general. - DreamHost allows "catch-all" addresses as above, and it offers SpamAssassin, but not BOTH. You cannot enable SpamAssassin on any account which has a catch-all address! This means I'm now receiving all the junk email that in the past was being filtered out for me. I can tell you it's very unpleasant. To get around this, I will have to set up discreet email addresses for all those runrev@, apple@, microsoft@, and so on addresses. I probably have 200 of them at this point, some of which I don't even remember. I'll also have to set up a corresponding account within my email client to check each of those discreet addresses. Not only does that make it much harder to implement my previous scheme -- instead of just typing the address and knowing it will get to me, I have to type the address and configure two accounts, one on the server and one on the client (15 minutes wasted) -- but checking for email would take much longer as my client walks through each address/alias. - The previous host enabled me to see all the folders on my IMAP server, including the Spam folder. This made it very easy for me to check the Spam folder for "false positives" -- which do crop up periodically. DreamHost requires that I log in to their Web Mail interface in order to check my Spam folder. - My previous host enabled me to customize SpamAssassin very easily. For example, I have the Spam score prefixed to the subject line of messages that are trapped. This way I can just click the "Subject" header in my email client, and all the marginal spam is at one end of the list. (This is where the false positives tend to be.) DreamHost offers no method to customize SpamAssassin. - The DreamHost mail server does not allow me to create new IMAP mail folders - DreamHost offers only "SquirrelMail" as the Web Mail client, and no others. My preferred WebMail client is Horde. My previous host offered SquirrelMail, Horde, and NeoMail. * Control Panel I've used cPanel for the last three years. It's clean, powerful, and consistent. I also found it pretty easy to use after a while. DreamHost uses its own proprietary control panel interface. DreamHost's control panel does offer a couple additional capabilities over cPanel, notably in the Billing area and the custom DNS area. However, - The DreamPanel is cluttered and messy. It's fairly unpredictable to figure out where they've tucked away the feature you need. - The "cuteness" of language in the interface is ok at first but becomes annoying quickly. As a user interface designer, I don't think this stuff belongs there. As a Windows user, I don't really need to be denigrated when I'm doing routine maintenance. They should stick to clean, well-organized standard terms. - Multiple sections have been "decommissioned" or "disabled" when you have to click a link to go somewhere else. Why they keep these sections around instead of just reorganizing the control panel to omit them, I don't know. - It's slow. Not to navigate, necessarily, but changes take several minutes to take effect. I changed my email password from the default, randomly created one to the one I prefer to use, and it took over 90 minutes to take effect. Until then I could not log into email using either the old one or the new one. - Site stats are kept for only 24 hours - It doesn't offer as many one-click install options for add-ons as cPanel does. - Does not offer access to your site backups. With cPanel I can download and/or revert my site to any of the backups that are available quite easily. CONCLUSION ========== I'm still waiting for a response from DreamHost on my email issues, but if they will not allow me to have SpamAssassin *and* a catch-all on my accounts, that will probably be a "deal-killer" for me and I will take advantage of their 97-day guarantee. I would definitely recommend DreamHost if you want to have vast disk space for things like system backups. I don't know of anyone reputable who has the same capacity for this price. I also think they are really good if you have the "traditional" setup of one or two email addresses that you use for everything. (Though it would still be nice to be able to check your Spam folder without logging into Web Mail.) Hope this is useful information for the list. "Alex Tweedly" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Dan Shafer wrote: > >> Stephen Barncard turned me on to Dreamhost over a year ago and I am a >> delighted client. >> >> I seem to recall getting Rev CGI working there at one point but as I >> recall >> I had some problem doing so. Stephen may be able to be more specific. >> >> But for hosting, these guys are great. >> > Stephen and Dan both recommended Dreamhost when I asked a while ago - and > I've been delighted with them. Since I'm only doing this as a hobby, I > went with the cheapest plan ($7.95 per month w/ a 2-year prepayment). > > More disk space than I have on my laptop, and enough bandwidth to keep me > happy. _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution