Did you miss us?!

[gavin]

Was anybody anxious that SBAi had gone down the tubes and that you'd never see it again?

Another question, not entirely unrelated:

Can anyone recommend a reliable Web host with the ability to host MySQL databases (MySQL5+), PHP (5.2+) and with SSH enabled? And plenty of web and MySQL storage?

cheers

Your Slightly Frustrated Admin

[Neils]

Using EHosting at the moment. can't say that I'm especially stressing the hosting service that I've got at the moment but it seems to work ok. Not sure how good they are for more heavy duty stuff but they seem to come with reasonable enough reviews.

[gavin]

Thanks Neil

My issues with Fasthosts are more the down-time than anything. Yesterday's was a failure of the server initially affecting MySQL databases only then the whole thing. I gather that they had to replace hardware. There have been lots of little periods and some big ones previously when we've been offline. The only times I've taken it down were twice I think for software upgrades that have taken minutes and were at a late hour (yet to try that Tapatalk plug-in, but I will!).

The reviews for Fasthosts seem to vary from one extreme (they are the spawn of the devil, never answer questions, take money out of your account for nothing without asking, try leaving the country and changing your name if you want to stop them taking money off you when renewal time comes around and you tell them you've had enough, around 80% of reviews) to the other (they've been lovely to me, bring me chocolates on my birthday, 100% uptime, been with them since I bought my ZX81, these other reviews must be from just one disgruntled customer, around 20% of reviews).

The other SBA web hosting company seem to run their servers off that ZX81 I've just mentioned. Yes, they had MySQL and PHP but not any version that will run with software written this millenium, and the storage capacity was in the floppy disk range.

Still, I have some months left on the year's rental yet.

[Neils]

The only thing I don't have on mine hosting options at the moment are SSL but it's certainly available plus as many Databases as you want (for a price, you get once instance as standard), for various reason I'm using SQL Server rather than then MySQL, but they're both options. I've never noticed mine go down and they normally give me 48 hours notice for any planned downtime of which I've had one occurrence in the last 8 months or so. But in terms of load/performance I'm very much at the bottom end of the scale, it's as much a test bed for me as something I drive a lot of traffic through but they certainly seem to offer options right up the scale.

[Calum]

eins&eins been using it for years, with no problems.
I have 3 sites hosted by them, for less than 40€/ year.

[Adam]

From my experience of Fasthosts and chasing money - I would never use them again.
From memory they will automatically renew for another year unless you tell them within a specific time window. If you suddenly realise that they have taken your money and you want to cancel at the end of the new contract you can't. You have to wait until the time window again. "It's all in your user agreement sir" I also had problems when they bought another business that I was registered with and they sent me invoices year in and year out relating to the old business (can't remember the name of it) with threats to sue. (After I had allowed my registered credit card to expire). My personal view: Bastards.

[gavin]

Deary me, what have I let myself in for?

Best get the specs out this weekend and find the fine print!

[Jon]

I have a website hosted by webfusion and I pay monthly automatically via my credit card.
In April this year I got a letter from a debt collection agency asking for 3 months arrears plus a surcharge.
I rang the hosting company and it turned out that my credit card was logged with an expiry date for the previous December.
I only have one credit card and i have had it with the same co. for over 20 years.
I updated my details in 5 minutes to fix the problem

They did not contact me via e-mail, letter or telephone to let me know there was a problem anytime between December and April before passing my details to a debt collection agency looking for the almighty sum of about 50 quid.
The site was never down so I was unaware of the problem.
I paid the arrears and it took 3 letters to the CEO before I got my money back and a grovelling apology.
They had bought another company and during the integration of systems a lot of stuff fell through the cracks.
I have been with these folk for about 7 years and bar this recent incident the quality of service has been excellent.
The company name has changed at least 3 times though.

[Hoomin_erra]

I use Justhosts. £1.95 per month. And they do unlimited SQL Databases all included.