Yeah, that was the other idea. Wait, Im assuming you mean a Virtual Dedicated Server ? Do you have any particular site in mind?

I noticed that Godaddy has VPS also. Was that the one you tried?

GoDaddy does support clean URLs and PHP5 though their support and documentation do little to make you aware of this. Regardless, I still wouldn't recommend them; I'm currently using their hosting for a couple of sites and I keep encountering MySQL timeout errors. I'll be moving hosting in a few months or so.

We are seriously looking into providing Ubercart hosting as a service. Our intention is to provide quality virtual private hosting. By quality I mean not overloading the physical server and providing a database server with some real capacity. This means it will not be the cheapest out there. Most hosting services I have seen / used / heard about costing less then $20 per month are not capable of handling anything more then a low traffic hobby site. At this point we are negotiating with providers for a T3 (big internet connection) and testing VPS solutions. We are probably about two months from being ready to offer beta testing and another 4-6 months from offering production services. I doubt this time frame will work for Tangerine, but it is something to keep in mind for the future.
Peace,
Andy

if i might add my thoughts.

I've rolled my own server. I don't recommend that for the uninitiated (e.g. i've worked with unix/linux for many years). But in the long run, if you can go this route (have enough money to buy your server(s) and host it in a data center and time to learn the OS of choice) it will save you lots of money in the long run and allow you to tweak and configure to your hearts content.

i realize that most people don't have the time or inclination to go this route. and that's understandable. however, if you do the math, you will see that letting someone else do this stuff for you adds up quickly. so if you're serious about your site and pretty sure it will make money you might want to consider biting the bullet and DIY.

many so-called vps and dedicated host providers are no better than the multitude of crappy hosting providers that are out there. and if you've never run your own, it's really hard to understand if you're getting a good deal so beware. hopefully the uc guys will buck the trend.

my final and most important thought is this:

DO NOT USE GODADDY UNLESS YOU CAN'T FIND ANYTHING ELSE.

Truth be told i haven't used them for hosting but they are my registrar. That includes email, dns, and domain service for a variety of sites.

I've been working in the field for many years and i can say that a company with the resources (aka huge profits from hoodwinking customers) should take some of that money and actually hire a development staff that actually knows something about programming and user interfaces with the intent to make their online services easier to use.

I can say without doubt that after using godaddy's convoluted services for 2 years, they PURPOSELY HAVE CREATED A SYSTEM THAT MAKES IT DIFFICULT FOR CUSTOMERS (MOST WHO HAVE NO IDEA wHAT THEY'RE DOING IN THE FIRST PLACE) TO EVALUATE, PURCHASE, MANAGE AND RENEW DOMAINS. THE CONFUSION RELATES IN MORE MONEY FOR BOB PARSONS THE JACKASS OWNER (who masquerades as a patriotic american) at the expense of bewildered consumers. I guess part of the definition of a patriot is someone who likes to rip off their fellow citizens. I could go into plenty of details but i won't. Just trust me .

Don't give these jackasses anymore money than they already don't deserve. If you are going to use them, use them purely for their crappy registrar services. And only because from what i understand everyone else out there is even worse than they are. That's pretty sad.

To bring the point home: You know you've hit a real winner when the customer service rep on the other end of the phone tells you *proudly* and with a chip on their shoulder that "we're as good or better than our competition in all areas". Hmmm. Last time i checked, if you're as good as your competition and your competition blows, well i guess that means you blow too.

I thought the idea was to be great at what you do, not just get by and be a little better than your shoddy competition? As you can see, godaddy's expectations are pretty low.

It's a trend today to look and sound good but offer little or nothing in return. I'm personally sick of it.

Hopefully store owners that have decided to use uc believe in what they're selling and actually offer some value in the process.

Sorry for the rant. Rant over.

andy,

in complete agreement about the economies of scale. if one's time is money, then letting someone else do it is definitely worth it.

the irony though is the people who need the services the most are the people that know the least about it. which means that they are not going to know how to evaluate the services available to them and often get charged for pretty poor service. providers that should be doing backups don't. firewalls that should be set aren't. etc.

the flipside irony is that once you have a rock solid server setup, most server maintenance is fairly minimal and requires little time. ups / power backup usually comes included with colocation so that's not really an issue. it's mostly backup / security issues that need attention. and that DOES require a lot of time to understand those issues and get them done the right way so that's where the opp cost comes in.

If and when shit does hit the fan, you need to be able to recover and get up and running quickly. That's a really boon for paying for this stuff. But again, how many providers are going to guarantee your restore time or loss of business reimbursement. Most are just flying by the seats of their pants and crossing their fingers stuff doesn't go bad.

i think the biggest advantage to vps IF YOUR PROVIDER ACTUALLY KNOWS WHAT THEY'RE DOING, is the area of performance tuning and load balancing as your business grows. You can actually save both time and money there. Oddly enough, this is the area most providers know the least about because it's the most specialized and least documented. Other server areas are pretty generic and well documented. However, customizing and *guaranteeing* a level of performance for a customer requires a real skill set honed after many years in the field.

That's contrary to the defacto standard that exists today. Generally, the provider field is dominated by a business model where the motto is "pack as many customers as we can onto one server so we can make as much profit as humanly possible".

So. when you find a good provider, hang on because they are few and far between.

tanji,

costs and red tape must be high wherever??? you are. but if you already have the server experience i can't imagine how much higher the cost is going to be going that route.

It all basically comes down to doing the math. Especially over a year period or some other longer period. the reliable vps providers are really rather expensive from my past checking. when you consider you only get like 2-10GB Disk space and x amount of ram on a SHARED system, usually a celeron or some low end server, it just doesn't pay.

Dedicated gets more pricey. Do the math and you can buy your own kick butt server for what they will charge for a year. Again, they'll often have you running on celeron's or some other less than stellar platform. After the first year (your initial server investment), you save big time. The first year is usually a wash.

The beauty of colo is that you don't have anyone in the chain of command who can fail you responsibility wise (for the most part). That sounds like your biggest complaint above. The colo hosting is only responsible for providing a climate controlled room, a fast and reliable pipe to your server, theft/security, and fire prevention.

The caveat is that the responsibility is all yours now. BUT THAT MEANS YOU HAVE COMPLETE CONTROL OVER YOUR SYSTEM AT ANY HOUR OF THE DAY. No more configuration hastles/limitations. No more hw performance issues - you're the only one running on your box - it's not shared unless you decide so. Better security IF you know what you're doing.

THE BIGGEST COST ADVANTAGE TO COLO IS IF YOU START RUNNING MULTIPLE SITES. That's where it just makes too much sense. The cost of multiple std hosting accounts or VPS just starts adding up too much. And administration panels provided by these providers to manage multiple accounts is just too slow and limiting.

Finally. I imagine GoDaddy is probably fine for a simple php / static html hosting account. It all comes down to need.

However, every experience i've had with them and their business model plays out like a bait and switch. It's deceptive and not in good spirit. I try not to honor and perpetuate that which i know to be dishonest. people in general (and i'm no exception) have all bought into the lowest price theory to varying degrees. we shop based on price and (mostly) price only. service, quality and honesty take back seats. It's killing the spirit of the world i live in. where hype is greater than substance. I'm trying not to reward these clowns. karma will catch up to that brain trust anyway.

the previous paragraph is obviously a little off topic but i throw it out there for perusal. i firmly believe that if you have a real passion in what you do and approach it with honesty, it reveals itself and comes back to you. that includes the stores we all create with uc. If profit is the main motive, you may or may not make a lot of dough but happiness is likely to elude the store owner. When you dig what you do / sell, you usually are more successful at it and if not, well at least you're happy .

Bob Parsons (mr godaddy ceo) is probably loaded to the hilt but i wonder how happy he really he is. I think he'd be more happy (or at least i would ), if he gave up some of that phat paycheck and used it to make his services / practices better .

flavoflav. Post your url, specs / details and prices here. I'd like to see what you're offering. Others would like that too. No need to private contact.

druru,

the costs here are high to not be worth the hassle they give me (especially for colo -- been there. done that too.). but then, that's my experience with the data centers here.

whatever it is, i'm simply looking for alternatives to the solution i currently have in place (which is hosting ih-house). and i'm glad for feedback about any hosting/vps/dedicated server solution -- good or bad. not just godaddy. so if you've any more rants/raves about any other service...keep 'em coming. Ü i prefer reading the reviews of people i get to communicate with. Ü

Bah! Lost more juice.

Just getting it back thank you very much!

Hi Tanjerine, the first site I hosted with them was with Drupal 4.7: My web design and ecommerce company website. It's been a bit neglected over the past few months but I'm working on a new site to replace it with Drupal 5.2.

I'm also working with a number of other Drupal/Ubercart sites that I can't really give out the URLs for yet. Suffice to say the only problem I have had is with the SimpleXML PHP extension - I didn't need to use it but it kept giving a warning in the main Drupal admin screen. This is being resolved though since United Hosting are upgrading their servers and part of the upgrade includes PHP5 (SimpleXML is enabled by default in PHP5).

When I come across a problem with something to do with the server I just email them and they tell me what to do immediately! This means I can run my sites without knowing everything about running a server and still provide a top-notch service to my clients. They are always helpful and always reply practically instantly to every support ticket.

Their control panels are being upgraded which will make things even better. They also have forums which can help a lot as users will have inevitably come across the same issues in the past.

No worries. They are the best I have been with for support, configurability and uptime (my sites have never been down due to their servers going offline).

hi bioben! thanks for the links. just to clarify, the $52/year is just the hosting. do we get to put in our own drupal/ubercart setups? or do we request it from the host?

thanks!

I would certainly not be able to run my business as well if it wasn't for the help of my host's support desk. As far as I am aware it's the owners/directors of the company are the ones replying to the more involved support requests and there are a couple of other guys who do the mopping up. I understand that my £30 a month doesn't go a long way and make sure I only contact them only as a last resort but they always respond. Even when it's nothing to do with their fault.

Hi bioben, sounds like you have it covered then. For a novice host like myself support is crucial. I wish you success with your venture. As Ryan pointed out before, it's nice to see some companies offering Ubercart services.

That sounds awesome, Peter. Also, I like the design of your site.

Welcome aboard, and best of luck with Ubercart!