IsMyWebsite Free Hosting Development Blog

Finally, I have received word that we are officially back on the listing of free web hosting sites at Free-WebHosts!

If you feel inclined, you can drop by and rate us 10/10 here:
http://www.free-webhosts.com/reviews/IsMyWebsite.php

I am also looking at other resources where we can establish ourselves. As always, there are tons of potential clients looking for free hosting at FreeWebSpace. Maybe someone can help us answer all the topics there.

Be sure to help spread the word in as many ways as possible at this time. We have 3 nodes which are almost completely empty so there is lots of room to fit your friends.

I just finished talking with Skylar from Crissic Solutions, the company behind our 8th node. There were two phases to this deal. The first:

1. They are willing to donate $2/mo off our bill to get their name up on the IsMyWall.
2. They want us to help design banners for their site through a competition. They are willing to provide free Standard Resellers to the winners for a year. They are also willing to upgrade us to the Standard Master Reseller in exchange for our efforts here.

So, anyone with graphical skills can start thinking of what they will be designing. We are going to need banners in 88×31 and 125×125 dimensions. What does everyone think of this? More information as it comes…

I didn’t actually believe this would go through. (In fact, I was recently promised another $100 donation that has yet to be paid.) But here it is, actually sitting in my PayPal balance. $190.

It started yesterday with a tiny comment on the blog:

Hmm… Tell me, what is the average cost of your nodes?

Depending on the price, I may be willing to donate enough for 1 year on 1 node, in exchange for waiving of ad requirements for my 1 site, provided that the money goes to a new node to help grow. Contact me on my email to discuss, please.

Bryan Bartlett, username Valareos, issued the following statement about why he donated:

The true value of any company, of any service, is not how they react when everything is running at 100% efficiency, but when a problem arises that shakes the very foundation of that company or service. What IsMyWebsite has went through these last few months could have been the end of the community entirely.

I joined IsMyWebsite just a few days before the great crash. In fact, I was in the queue to have my website accepted. My entire purpose was finding a free hosting service that supported SQL databases so I could develop my scripts in a test environment before going live on my paid hosting account. I was also going to use this service as a backup for all my files.

When the site suddenly stopped responding for days, I assumed that they just folded up, and vanished off the face of the earth. I continued to look for a different service, every so often checking back to see if perhaps the site would come back. Finally, the blog appeared, explaining everything. I waited, I watched, and I was amazed how quickly IsMyWebsite addressed the problem, fixed the problem, AND worked to ensure the problem didn’t repeat itself.

As I was waiting for IsMyWebsite to finish their nodes, and give me domain space, my original host deleted my entire website. Why? Clerical error caused them to show me a year behind on payments. There was nothing I could do. They offered to give me a year free service, but all my files were permanently gone, and there was no backups to go to.

So what did that show me? That IsMyWebsite, a relatively small, free hosting service that is supported by unobtrusive ads placed where the designer wants them handled a crisis with more professionalism, and more care for customer satisfaction than a large “professional” company.

It is for this reason, and many others, that I have donated $190 CDN, to pay for a full year hosting and domain for a new node, to help this community grow.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

This is the first donation to ring through in months, and I really hopes it stirs up more. Donate like Valareos here.