A web designer friend of mine has several (~40) websites hosted at Fasthosts who have been constantly letting him down. He is not technical, and has decided he wants out of web hosting so he can focus on the website design.
Any suggestions who I should recommend?
At this stage I think he's looking for someone who would deal with end users (ie the customer buys a site from him and hosting from someone else), although I would personally suggest he just looks for a reliable host who will support him when something breaks. He's currently using Plesk so someone who could migrate what he has now would be ideal in my view.
My company used to do web hosting (and used to host his sites) which is why he's asking me, but it's not something I want to get back into. I would prefer to recommend someone I "know" (eg a local company with a member of staff on this list). Ie I'd rather have answers that start "we do this" than "we use xyz who does this", but I'm open to all.
Mark
On 08 Aug 17:00, Mark Rogers wrote:
A web designer friend of mine has several (~40) websites hosted at Fasthosts who have been constantly letting him down. He is not technical, and has decided he wants out of web hosting so he can focus on the website design.
Any suggestions who I should recommend?
Well, that doesn't really say what the requirements are, if it's just static site hosting, that's different to say a rails based web app, or a django site... database requirements, languages, etc could easily change who the recommendation would be.
At this stage I think he's looking for someone who would deal with end users (ie the customer buys a site from him and hosting from someone else), although I would personally suggest he just looks for a reliable host who will support him when something breaks. He's currently using Plesk so someone who could migrate what he has now would be ideal in my view.
My company used to do web hosting (and used to host his sites) which is why he's asking me, but it's not something I want to get back into. I would prefer to recommend someone I "know" (eg a local company with a member of staff on this list). Ie I'd rather have answers that start "we do this" than "we use xyz who does this", but I'm open to all.
Off the top of my head, I'd recommend Mythic Beasts.
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/hosting.html
Mostly because they're a lovely bunch of guys.
(Disclaimer: Erm, I'm going to be an employee of theirs in about a month...)
On 8 August 2013 17:10, Brett Parker iDunno@sommitrealweird.co.uk wrote:
Well, that doesn't really say what the requirements are, if it's just static site hosting, that's different to say a rails based web app, or a django site... database requirements, languages, etc could easily change who the recommendation would be.
Good point...
When we were hosting them, it was a mixture of static sites and a few PHP based ones (PrestaShop e-commerce, etc).
I doubt there's anything script-wise other than PHP (and it will be applications like PrestaShop not custom code).
Everything would be managed via Plesk/FTP.
It would include email hosting (IMAP/POP3) and DNS.
Off the top of my head, I'd recommend Mythic Beasts.
http://www.mythic-beasts.com/hosting.htmlMostly because they're a lovely bunch of guys.
From a quick look, I think Mythic are probably above his level. He'd
need someone like me to manage it for him (and I don't want to be involved!)
This is part of my problem: the hosting companies I know would happily sell him a VPS but he'd be largely on his own after that. At the very least he needs someone who will install and support Plesk on his server.
(Disclaimer: Erm, I'm going to be an employee of theirs in about a month...)
To be honest that's exactly the kind of connection I'm looking for...
On Thu, Aug 08, 2013 at 05:00:38PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
A web designer friend of mine has several (~40) websites hosted at Fasthosts who have been constantly letting him down. He is not technical, and has decided he wants out of web hosting so he can focus on the website design.
Any suggestions who I should recommend?
TsoHost
On Fri, Aug 09, 2013 at 09:23:11PM +0100, Chris Green wrote:
On Thu, Aug 08, 2013 at 05:00:38PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
A web designer friend of mine has several (~40) websites hosted at Fasthosts who have been constantly letting him down. He is not technical, and has decided he wants out of web hosting so he can focus on the website design.
Any suggestions who I should recommend?
TsoHost
Oops, sorry about that, I just fixed a strange DNS error here and a lot of queued mail got sent, rather late!
On 12 August 2013 16:34, Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
TsoHost
Oops, sorry about that, I just fixed a strange DNS error here and a lot of queued mail got sent, rather late!
Thanks all the same, it's useful to have recommendations. Shame they only support cPanel rather than Plesk which would make a migration easier, but I'll forward the suggestion anyway.
Mark
On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 10:08:38PM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 12 August 2013 16:34, Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
TsoHost
Oops, sorry about that, I just fixed a strange DNS error here and a lot of queued mail got sent, rather late!
Thanks all the same, it's useful to have recommendations. Shame they only support cPanel rather than Plesk which would make a migration easier, but I'll forward the suggestion anyway.
They don't only have cPanel, on their 'Ultimate Hosting' the user interface is their own custom set up which is pretty good (IMHO).
On 13 August 2013 08:31, Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
They don't only have cPanel, on their 'Ultimate Hosting' the user interface is their own custom set up which is pretty good (IMHO).
I'm not advocating Plesk as a product (never really used it, or cPael for that matter). On the few systems I have a "control panel" it's VirtualMin, and I rarely touch that either.
The reason for seeking out Plesk is that is what my friend currently uses so it should, as I understand it, make migrating the sites trivial and reduce (remove?) any learning curve for him.
If TshHost have the capability to import from Plesk that would be a start, but I didn't see anything along those lines when I had a quick look.
On 13/08/13 09:41, Mark Rogers wrote:
The reason for seeking out Plesk is that is what my friend currently uses so it should, as I understand it, make migrating the sites trivial and reduce (remove?) any learning curve for him.
Only if the version is pretty close to the same, surely? Plesk doesn't reliably import from its own exports in my experience (failure is correlated with the number of version/platform/moonphase differences), so it's a bit harsh expecting anything else to import it!
Plesk won't be around forever and shows no sign of adding support for standards-based export formats or even terms in the user interface, so that exit cost will probably keep on hanging over your friend until he pays it and it'll probably increase his costs and/or limit choice every renewal until then too. If there's a good offer, I wouldn't let the exit cost deter the recommendation.
On the other hand, Plesk's export format was something fairly simple to unpack the last time I saw it (but I don't remember what), so it may be possible that something will do a 90% import or conversion to standard formats one day.
Similar arguments against cPanel and other proprietary control panels, with the difference that I've not seen them so maybe they do use standard terms and/or formats, but they're even rarer so probably limit choice and increase costs more.
Regards,
On 14 August 2013 16:53, MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
[...] Plesk doesn't reliably import from its own exports in my experience (failure is correlated with the number of version/platform/moonphase differences), so it's a bit harsh expecting anything else to import it!
[snip: lots of useful stuff about Plesk]
Thanks for that; as I mentioned earlier I don't have any experience with Plesk. As you say, biting the bullet and migrating sites to something new would probably be the right thing to do.
Similar arguments against cPanel and other proprietary control panels,
In terms of "pile it high, sell it cheap" hosting offers, which to be honest are probably appropriate for this user with only basic per-site requirements and little systems knowledge, I've only found two options: proprietary panels like cPanel and Plesk, and bespoke panels that any of the larger hosting organisations will have designed themselves. In terms of interoperability cPanel and Plesk are better than the alternatives.
As I mentioned, I use VirtualMin (on WebMin) myself when I need something like that, which is at least open, but that's of relatively little use to someone who doesn't have the capability to install it when as far as I can see no major hosts support it. And I suspect (without knowing my way around Plesk/cPanel) that VirtualMin is less easy to use.
My friend is a designer, not a web host, and only hosts because he has to. He's spending more and more of his time managing the hosting due to issues with his current provider and he wants to dump as much of that onto someone better qualified to deal with it as possible. All he really needs is a way to set-up a site (allocate it disk space, configure Apache for the domain, configure email for the domain), with the rest being managed via FTP. And to be honest, if his way to set things up was to fire an email to someone who did it all for him with no web interfaces involved, just leaving him with an FTP account per site to upload to, then I think he'd be very happy (as long as whoever responded to those emails did so in a reasonable time frame, of-course).
If any of this is something that software.coop (or anyone else on the list) are interested in just shout! I'd really like to give him some choices of people I "know".
Mark
On 15/08/13 07:57, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 14 August 2013 16:53, MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
Similar arguments against cPanel and other proprietary control panels,
In terms of "pile it high, sell it cheap" hosting offers, which to be honest are probably appropriate for this user with only basic per-site requirements and little systems knowledge, I've only found two options: proprietary panels like cPanel and Plesk, and bespoke panels that any of the larger hosting organisations will have designed themselves. In terms of interoperability cPanel and Plesk are better than the alternatives.
Yeah, and why do they use them? One reason is the sell it cheap merchants rely on customers staying long enough that they recoup the hosting creation costs, and one way to make people stay longer is to make it more difficult to leave. Another is that things like buying cPanel and Plesk is cheaper than buying a decent control panel and are standardish - they're common but don't give customers most of the interoperability and portability benefits of real standards.
There are a few FOSS panels like DTC (which we use for a few years but Thomas Goirand's gplhost.com are its main developers), ISPconfig and some others whose names I'd have to look up. I've not found a perfect one yet and they each have their own quirks, but the main challenge stopping Plesk users is that they're different quirks to Plesk's. Most of them make it easier to extract a domain in something like standard formats: DTC prints out zone files and has Maildirs, htdocs and logs folders you can download.
I don't know VirtualMin but it wouldn't be hard to be as good as Plesk - Plesk's really not that good, especially if you do anything its makers doesn't consider commonplace, like change configurations in certain ways or install extra software that Plesk can't "manage".
I'm not pushing the co-op at your friend because I don't know that PHP package, I'm very wary of hosting other people's PHP these days and it seems like price is a big enough issue that he probably won't afford us - let me know off-list if that's wrong and I'll send over a quote ;-)
We started out offering and supporting hosting, but it isn't as big a part of our business any more - we still do it mainly for WordPress and our own CMS, ecommerce and libraries software because anyone cheaper is far worse, although we take some paying outside customers too - so I might be a bit behind the news on control panels.
If anyone in ALUG has noticed the launch of a brilliant standards-based control panel, please tell the list ;-)
Regards,
On 15 August 2013 16:18, MJ Ray mjr@phonecoop.coop wrote:
There are a few FOSS panels like DTC (which we use for a few years but Thomas Goirand's gplhost.com are its main developers), ISPconfig and some others whose names I'd have to look up.
I've tried both of these in the past. DTC I never managed to get up and running (it was some years ago), ISPConfig I don't recall now why it didn't stick. I think in the end VirtualMin just worked better. It's very much like the WebMin that sits underneath it, and I'd had some experience of WebMin in the past (not that I would say I like it...)
I'm pretty sure VirtualMin can simply export a site with all of its configuration for import into another VirtualMin, and I'd bet that the backup file would be something that could be opened in any archive manager and make some sense to someone who knew what they were looking at.
I'm not pushing the co-op at your friend because I don't know that PHP package, I'm very wary of hosting other people's PHP these days and it seems like price is a big enough issue that he probably won't afford us
- let me know off-list if that's wrong and I'll send over a quote ;-)
I will take this off-list but I don't think your concerns are necessarily warranted (I can't say he can afford you as I don't know what your charges would be!)
We started out offering and supporting hosting, but it isn't as big a part of our business any more - we still do it mainly for WordPress and our own CMS, ecommerce and libraries software because anyone cheaper is far worse, although we take some paying outside customers too - so I might be a bit behind the news on control panels.
That's pretty much where we were a few years back; hosting our customers stuff because it was easier than letting someone else do it. We got out of that market a couple of years ago to focus on other things and the friend in question was a customer prior to that and moved around that time, and he'd like to come back but I really don't want to get back into that game.
If anyone in ALUG has noticed the launch of a brilliant standards-based control panel, please tell the list ;-)
A half decent one would be a good start!
On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 07:57:16AM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
My friend is a designer, not a web host, and only hosts because he has to. He's spending more and more of his time managing the hosting due to issues with his current provider and he wants to dump as much of that onto someone better qualified to deal with it as possible. All he really needs is a way to set-up a site (allocate it disk space, configure Apache for the domain, configure email for the domain), with the rest being managed via FTP. And to be honest, if his way to set things up was to fire an email to someone who did it all for him with no web interfaces involved, just leaving him with an FTP account per site to upload to, then I think he'd be very happy (as long as whoever responded to those emails did so in a reasonable time frame, of-course).
If any of this is something that software.coop (or anyone else on the list) are interested in just shout! I'd really like to give him some choices of people I "know".
I'm quite happy (and allowed) to sell him some of mt TsoHost hosting. My 'ultimate hosting' account allow me to have up to 100 (or is it 200) domains/sites hosted. I only have a dozen, or maybe 20, at present.
I'd be very happy to do the 'keep it all working smoothly' bit, install Wordpress (or whatever) etc. The TsoHost set up is such that most of what your friend wants is done automatically when you configure a new domain for hosting on TsoHost. (Note: no need from TsoHost's point of view to have the domain registered with them) I'd only have to get involved with odd bits of configuration like where to forward E-Mail and adding any software needed.
On 17 August 2013 15:31, Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
I'm quite happy (and allowed) to sell him some of mt TsoHost hosting. My 'ultimate hosting' account allow me to have up to 100 (or is it 200) domains/sites hosted. I only have a dozen, or maybe 20, at present.
Thanks Chris, I'll pass on your details and suggest he talks to you.
[...] I'd only have to get involved with odd bits of configuration like where to forward E-Mail and adding any software needed.
I think it would need more than this, at least as far as email is concerned he's going to need mailboxes rather than just forwarding. Of-course that could just be done by whoever the domain is registered with, but as I understand it that's FastHosts and that's what he's tying to escape!
However, it makes sense he talks to you and you can see if there's a mutual benefit in working something out.
Thanks again.
On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 10:50:24AM +0100, Mark Rogers wrote:
On 17 August 2013 15:31, Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
I'm quite happy (and allowed) to sell him some of mt TsoHost hosting. My 'ultimate hosting' account allow me to have up to 100 (or is it 200) domains/sites hosted. I only have a dozen, or maybe 20, at present.
Thanks Chris, I'll pass on your details and suggest he talks to you.
[...] I'd only have to get involved with odd bits of configuration like where to forward E-Mail and adding any software needed.
I think it would need more than this, at least as far as email is concerned he's going to need mailboxes rather than just forwarding. Of-course that could just be done by whoever the domain is registered with, but as I understand it that's FastHosts and that's what he's tying to escape!
TsoHost is very flexible as regards mail. You can set up as many mailboxes as you like on a domain from which you can retrieve mail by POP3 or IMAP. Then, if you want, you can set up mail forwarding from specific addresses as well, and you can have E-Mail aliases.
However, it makes sense he talks to you and you can see if there's a mutual benefit in working something out.
OK, I'm afraid I'm off on holiday for a bit more than two weeks from today and, although I will probably still pick up E-Mails and answer them I won't be in a position to do a lot until around 9th September.
On 08/08/13 17:00, Mark Rogers wrote:
/snip/
My company used to do web hosting (and used to host his sites) which is why he's asking me, but it's not something I want to get back into. I would prefer to recommend someone I "know" (eg a local company with a member of staff on this list). Ie I'd rather have answers that start "we do this" than "we use xyz who does this", but I'm open to all.
Paston Chase hosts mine. ( www.paston.co.uk IIRC)
No problems, but may not be as cheap as some.
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Anthony Anson -
Brett Parker -
Chris Green -
Mark Rogers -
MJ Ray