Ramblings by A.S!

Here’s something cool, Reyox is on page # 1 of Google for the search term VPS Hosting Solutions. Not bad

 ~A.S.

Quite a few customers have been asking me when Reyox plans on upgrading to Helm 4. Well I can’t give anyone a definite timeframe just yet. For one thing, the Helm 4 migration tool/upgrade tool is far from being out of Beta and we certainly can’t risk bringing down a 50 server cluster because of a faulty upgrade. There are also a couple of issues Helm 4 has which need to be ironed out before we even consider upgrading to it. However I believe an upgrade to Helm 4 is probable towards the end of this year.

 ~A.S.

Words can’t express how sad I feel for this awesome British car (being a British car fan) being treated this way:

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/07/05/cruel-sick-joke-bentley-continental-badged-as-a-hyundai/

~A.S.

This has been one busy month for Reyox Hosting. We’ve had a record number of VPS signups and VPS upgrades this month, which is why I’ve had no time for updates on the blog. A list of stuff that’s going on:

1. New Reyox Man comic episode coming next month
2. Newer hosting plans are around the corner
3. Reyox Hosting is also working on a new hosting platform, no details available on it yet but once it’s released you’ll be pleasantly surprised

~A.S.

Like I said earlier, I was going to revamp HottestMusic.org, and so I have. Now it’s completely forum based. Go ahead, register & start posting.

~A.S.

I’m proud to announce the acquisition of a tiny website called HottestMusic.org (www.hottestmusic.org). It’s really only a top list site for popular music. I thought it would be a nice starting point to IchiBan’s upcoming network of info-sites. Check it out, although its’ rather simple right now, I plan on doing quite a few neat things with it.

 http://www.hottestmusic.org

~A.S.

I found this rather amusing so I thought I’d share it with ya’ll. I happened to be on the Reyox Hosting chat system waiting for the replacement CS-op to take over while I retired for the day. A chat request came in and I followed up like always as I would on a CS request.

Turns out it was an FBI agent trying to find out about a phishing site that might have been on our network. Eventually since he sounded serious, I asked him to followup on phone, which he did. We talked on the phone for a while and he told me that someone from the Hong Kong Police had alerted him of the phishing site. While he was on the phone he shared the domain name of the site, I quickly checked up on our network to see if the site was still hosted… turns out it wasn’t (anymore). I told him that its’ pointing elsewhere, he double checked on his end and found it to be so as well (obviously). He thanked me for my co-operation and we exchanged email addresses and I told him he can contact me at anytime if there’s anything further that needs to be done.

Anyhow, what I’m trying to say is. After being in the hosting industry for 5+ years, this is the first time the FBI actually called up rather than sending an email (which is normally what they do). I’m guessing their partnering agencies world-wide are becoming more proactive about phishing sites. That’s excellent actually if it remains this way.

 P.S. The FBI agent was actually very pleasant to deal with!

~A.S.

I would like to remind those who sign up for free hosting (which is by the dozen-load everyday) at the fine print right on the free hosting page, quite visible, so fine print isn’t the right word actually… more like criteria:

And I quote: “You must have an established website which we can review for placement on our network”

If it’s not clear, then let me make it clearer. Please do not bother signing up if you don’t have an established website already setup and hosted some place. Our free hosting is as good as our paid hosting, so we’re picky about the quality of sites we put on our network. This is for people with a good website but who can’t afford webhosting or can’t find a decent webhosting company.

Please, once more, I re-iterate: You must have an established website, with quality material. If it’s a site about yourself and your pet, might I suggest GeoCities instead.

~A.S.

When you’ve been in the hosting industry as long as I have, you try and test stuff. This opinion is on Windows control panels for reseller hosting. I’ve tried everything out there, including Hosting Controller, Plesk, Hsphere and Ensim (and a few others). After helping customers (personally) through account setup and even issues on their dedicated servers, I’ve come to one conclusion. Each and every one of the previously mentioned control panels, suck, really badly.

Here’s why:

Plesk: Not nearly as expandable as it should be, lacks a lot of features but is definitely easy to use and I’d say thats the only thing thats good about it.

Hosting Controller: These guys should stop producing software. Has to be the glitchiest control panel in existence with the most unintuitive interface out there.

Ensim: Needlessly complicated, for no justifiable reason, breaks like Chinese cars.

Hsphere: Good product but very complicated, complex requirements and the prices simply aren’t justified.

Why I like Helm?

There’s a reason Reyox Hosting uses it. Not because I like it, it’s because it’s by far the most practical control panel which exists to date. Sure it has its own fair share of bugs, but Mark Hall and the WHA team are very fast in ironing them out. Their prices are fairly reasonable… and best of all, it allows for unlimited expansion. Meaning you can add as many servers in a cluster as you want.

How is this good for reseller hosting?

For a company which offers unlimited domains, practically speaking, I’m not going to associate my good name with anything thats along the lines of being oversold (like crazy, say 2000 domains on 1 webserver which believe me, happens in this industry all the time!). Expandable webserver clusters allow for my customers’ domains’ to grow infinitely (until they use up all their webspace) on multiple webservers. Helm allows for, using a separate mailserver, database server, webserver and control panel server. That means webservers can have minimal processing load unlike solutions where mailservers etc need to exist on the same machine as the webserver.

The only thing Helm has, is a learning curve for resellers, I’d say thats about 15 minutes at most if instructions are followed properly. Lastly, if anyone from SwSoft, Hosting Controller, Ensim or PSoft reads this: Your products have their own unique abilities but look into how Helm does it.

 ~A.S.

The Internet business is all about marketing, and webhosting is certainly no exception. Only a few days since Reyox Hosting introduced free hosting and we’re already getting tons of signups (sorry to all those we’re rejecting but seriously, we do have a quota, but keep trying… maybe next time?).

Now what’s great about our free hosting is that you can signup and be approved as long as the domain is your own, and you get the full fledged features of any proper shared hosting package. I promised you we wouldn’t put skyscrapers or huge ads on your sites and we haven’t! What we’re using is AdSense and even that is not being used in quite a few cases like Charitible Organizations or in cases where it might ruin your site’s layout. In those cases we simply use a link back to our own homepage.

How this benefits us? Well all I’m going to say is: backlinks and PR! Reyox Hosting was never really into online marketing and that I can easily say was a shortcoming on our part (or me since I’m mostly responsible for promotions). We were relying heavily on word of mouth, which turned out quite well actually. However now it’s time to kick Reyox Hosting into 5th gear in order to meet the goals I’ve set for next year. For that we’re rolling out our heavy ‘dominate Google’ campaigns along with several campaigns which I’m sure you’ve see, like the current one on HostSearch.com.

Now by dominate Google, I’m not talking about blackhat stuff. Just stuff like backlinks and reviews. And this is where free hosting cleverly comes in, the more we host, the more backlinks we get. Now you might be wondering if this really pays off? Yes it does, the return alone in referrals is worth it. Its’ far too early to say anything affirmative but the next six months will really tell. Another thing that might have popped into your head is, how can Reyox really afford to throw away huge freely hosted packages? Well my dear Intenet friend, there’s a reason that I waited five years… yes five years before getting into free hosting. Reyox Hosting -has- the infrastrucuture to support all that extra weight.

Why am I telling you this? Simple! I like sharing my knowledge and pointing the newbies who are looking at this industry as a prospect, in the right direction.

~A.S.