Meddling
Posted by Daniel Stout on Sat 21 Jan 2006 at 10:31 PM
He: In his Autumn before the Winter comes Man’s last mad surge of Youth.
She: What on Earth are you talking about?
Listen.
You may have noticed a bit of downtime on Manufactured Environments as we switched back to our web host of favor, pair Networks. Things are all switched over now, and hopefully everybody is pointing to the same servers. We spent a couple of weeks over at DreamHost, and frankly, we weren’t that impressed. We’ve been using pair for a long time, and we must admit that we’re used to the Gold Standard that they set in terms of uptime, speed, and server availability. For us, the important thing is that the site is available to you the viewer, and with pair we’re assured a consistent, steady uptime. Because we’re thorough we verify these things with pinging services, and while uptime with pair was virtually 100% in our experience, DreamHost offered plenty of little glitches and hiccups in service over the couple of weeks we were hosting over there. At any rate, we’re glad to be back.
We hope that our blogmate Faust is understanding and will post his playlist from today’s Freeform Faust radio show on KWLC. We were delighted to listen in today and catch such classics as Swan Lake by Public Image Ltd. 
So we’re done with our machinations for now. We hope y’all are having a groovy little weekend.
Tags: dreamhost · itunes · mad surge of youth · pair networks · pil · swan lake · webhosting · what on earth are you talking about
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I will try to post the free form playlist soon. After all, Mr. Daniel Stout was the featured listener.
I would not say that I am unimpressed with the value DreamHost provides, especially in light of my experiences with many other hosts. While I consider pair Networks something of a gold standard (it's only blemish being the now resolved problem which lead Manufactured Environments to explore other options), I still would not hesitate to recommend DreamHost in many situations. Due to a restrictive terms of service, there are many things one just cannot do over at pair Networks. Plus, the featured per dollar ratio is easily in DreamHost's favor for those on a budget. Yet, when I require the best uptime, speed, and server availability a shared hosting solution can offer, I settle for no less than pair Networks. But, when I don't, DreamHost does an admirable job for less than half the price.
That said, I am glad Manufactured Environments is back with pair Networks.
Full Disclosure:I host my mail with pair Networks and thus have no first hand experience with the quality of DreamHost's mail service.
DreamHost offers referral rewards of up to $97 per referral. When someone signs up for an account via http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?mrfaust" rel="nofollow">http://www.dreamhost.com/rewards.cgi?mrfaust, I get a reward. To show that my endorsement is not a paid one, anyone who uses that link and enters "ZEROREWARD" as the promo code will have my entire reward deducted from their first payment.
I look forward to seeing your FreeForm Faust playlist for 21 January. Will you also be posting a recording of said show online?
Just to clarify, DreamHost is not necessarily half the price of pair Networks. It depends if you want to run custom CGI, etc. pair has hosting accounts starting at $6/month with a nice discount if you pay by the quarter or year. But you'll need at least an Advanced account at pair if you want to run custom CGI. pair's stance on that makes sense, as follows:
Accounts with Custom CGI are able to use a wide range of powerful CGI software, with a resulting impact on the load of our servers. By setting an appropriate price for this capability, we are able to ensure that it is utilized in proportion to the number of new servers we set up. Hosts who offer this capability at lower prices will logically have higher loads on their servers. This isn't a problem that can be brushed off by saying "we just have faster servers to compensate"; the difference in load between static and dynamic page serving can be orders of magnitude. Worse yet, poorly-written CGI programs can take down any server easily. Managing that sort of problem incurs higher costs for the hosting company.
Glad that you're back! My only regret is that I usually lack the time to take what I learn from your blog and implement it.
That's okay, Steve. That any learning happens at all from the blog amazes me.