Several hours yesterday were spent in heated discussions regarding our future with them. A short 2 weeks ago, there were discussions regarding the Crissic banner design competition, as well as a reduction of $2/mo off our hosting cost to show up as a donation on our donation wall. However, three days ago, the following email came in:

“I am sorry to say that we can no longer support the bulk accounts that you have placed on our server. The amount of accounts you have placed on the server is causing the shared server much stress, causing FTP, HTTPD, and other services to fail on a regular basis. Last night we had downtime in excess of 25 minutes due to these issues.”

110 accounts were terminated immediately. (These had been already moved to other nodes.) On top of this, it was requested that we move 150 further accounts off the server to bring the level to “keep it around 650-700 accounts TOPS”. We selected approximately 350 accounts that would be moved to Node 10, lowering the number of accounts to 505. This is the official statement released by Skylar from Crissic:

“We had to pull out due to the amount of strain the amount of accounts had been placing on the server. For IsMyWebsite to run correctly, they need a medium-sized cluster of dedicated servers. The reasoning behind the time constraint on asking clients to move their data in one week is because the issues that are being caused are too large. FTP and HTTPD are constantly failing, causing outages for hundreds more paying clients with Crissic Solutions. For the sake of our paying clients, holding [the] additional clients that are free clients with IsMyWebsite is not worth [what] Matt is currently paying us. We have [also] received a few isolated cases from the free clients that include warez forums, spam email, and a few other items. The never-ending risk of a free client potentially rooting into the server, or another hacking incident that happened a short few months ago with IsMyWebsite is too large to risk for our paying clients. We wish the best of luck to all at IsMyWebsite, and hope that your future endeavors are successful.”

Skylar MacMinn, Crissic Solutions, LLC

Despite additional attempts at a settlement, the final verdict was reached.

“You have until the morning of the 8th of July to move all data off. Regardless if you are transferred off or not, all remaining accounts will be deleted.”

Skylar has stated that all data currently on the VPS may remain, and we are looking into the potential purchase of a dedicated server with them. As Mike puts it, “I am pro-Crissic is because the servers are fast and reliable and we are getting a good deal”.

The new server wont be here for another 1-2 weeks. Skylar has promised your data will be safe for this time.

Everyone knows how important it is to keep important documents in a safe place. Since your site is important, it makes sense to also place a copy of it in a secure place. I’ve heard far too many stories of people not keeping backups and ending up with a lost site, and I don’t want that to happen to anybody here.

IsMyWebsite will do its best to keep your data safe, but due to the unpredictability of the Internet and the technology that runs it, we can’t guarantee that an accident won’t happen. That’s why you need to keep backups. Not only does it give you peace of mind, but it also keeps your data safe.

I’ve made a tutorial that will walk you through backing up your home directory (all your site’s files) and databases. Please use it: http://ismywebsite.com/my/help/backup

If you need any further help with backing up, I’ll be glad to walk you through it. Just send me a message.

I just bought a new node

The specs are:

Disk Space: 70GB
Bandwidth: 300GB
RAM: 512MB
If you wish to be transferred please leave a comment with your account name or you can email me at mike.spears@ismyhost.com

This new node is a high end VPS from Crissic.

Domain Name: ismyhost.net

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.

You can email me at mike.spears@ismyhost.com

You can also IM me in Second Life at Mike1 Twine

You can get Second Life at http://secondlife.com

It’s a mess involving 703 of our websites, all of who are hosted on the seventh node. The company behind the node, Iwhic, which originally promised us they would allow free hosting, has reconsidered. Our access to manage the accounts hosted there has effectively been removed, with the suspension of our account.

They have now given us 2 weeks to move all data over to another node. On a positive note, this means all of our node domains will now be more consistent. There is sufficient storage on nodes 10 and 11 to fit all of these accounts with still extra room.

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.

I’d like to apologize on behalf of DeiseHost’s strict ‘no overselling’ policy. As you will see here, hosting with Overselling Enabled was not only initially requested, but at the top of our list. Dan from DeiseHost has replied offering their services.

http://freewebspace.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2208334

Unfortunately I received a recent email. (Delayed I may add.)

I am sorry but we do not allow Overselling.

Regards,
Dan

Now we’re stuck with unlimited hosting (the default) for all our clients and there’s no way to change that since no matter what move we take, we’ve still exceeded our allotment by infinity. Here’s a follow-up:

May i firstly like to quote what dan actually said to you in this post.

“Hello,

DeiseHost.Com can offer you the following:

5 GB Disc Space
50 GB Data Transfer
cPanel/WHM 11
Fantastico De Luxe
Unlimited Features
Host Unlimited Accounts
24/7 Dedicated and Friendly Support

Monthly Price: $8.99″

no where in that did Dan offer you overselling. Therefore you chose to select this offer on the basis of what Dan offered you here.

Kind Regards,
Neil Hickman.

Speaking of which, no other company does mention that they offer overselling or even PHP URL access. Isn’t it odd how all the others just had these features or else checked my requirements before replying. But, I guess, you are right. No where did you actually say you offered overselling.

The Node 4 No Overselling curse lives on. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

For those not in the loop, a number of months ago Antony was behind a false promise of 6 high-end dedicated servers which would, in effect, solve all our hardware-related problems. This promise continued, shifting the focus of 2 months of valuable time that could have been used to find a different solution that was at least decent to meet our needs.

The ploy was expertly executed, with ongoing relentless stories of the struggle to configure and set up the servers. I was even sent links to a WHM panel on 3 occasions, and initally shown a website which proved to be his (on a fast-loading server, I might add). A part of me was skeptical, another hoped for the best, and yet another was looking at all the evidence presented in his story. Still, I vowed not to let this slip until I knew it was true. As time went on however, and the server problems worsened, I had to give hope to my clients. I invited Antony to announce the server at one of our meetings.

Works at ESET… I wish!

One day he staged to be an older brother and informed me that his younger brother Antony was very good at coming up with creative stories such as this one. When I found a few holes in this new story, he came forth with what I believe may be the final truth. He had, in the beginning a dream to find these servers and offer them to us. He thought he could, but they were too expensive to afford in the end. He kept up the story hoping against hope he could finish it with a happy ending. But he couldn’t.

Most recently, I have just been informed there were attacks taking place against his server and verbal attacks through MSN. I would just like to request that these stop, since I don’t consider him an enemy nor advocate retaliation of this kind. Thanks everyone.

He keeps asking repeatedly how he can fix this, but there really isn’t much. He did offer us free SSL certificates a while ago, which I might consider. If you can think of anything better he can do, do let me know.