Apache 1.3.31 PHP 4.3.9 MySQL 4.0.21
Perl 5.8.5 · Python 2.3.4 · Zend Optimizer 2.5 · phpMyAdmin 2.6.0

Our network

Two upstream carriers, Cisco routers, batteries and a generator. 99.9% network uptime with a published credit schedule.

corvus, the secondary nameserver, came off its original hardware in June. The name still answers; the machine went home with the person who installed it.

Backups

Nightly tape backup is included. Restores are performed on request and take a business day, because somebody has to find the tape.

One-click installs

phpBB 2.0.10 · WordPress 1.2 · Movable Type 3.0 · Gallery 1.4.4 · osCommerce 2.2 MS2 · Zen Cart · Mambo

Fantastico carries the versions it has been shipped; ours was updated in September.

Control panel

cPanel 9 and WHM 9 with the cPanel X theme; the old theme is still installed for accounts that ask. Console remains for accounts created before 2000.

FrontPage 2002 Server Extensions are fully supported. They are also the component of our platform we patch most often, and those two sentences are related.

For resellers

Plesk 7 Reloaded, Ensim Pro 4 and H-Sphere 2.4 on the Windows and multi-server platforms. Private nameservers included.

The best place to host your forum.

Most of what we host started as one page and an idea. The parts that are still here grew a forum, because that is where the people who liked the idea went. phpBB installs from the panel in about four minutes, without a shell.

Hosting plans

	Personal	Standard	Professional	Reseller
Disk space	250 MB	1,000 MB	5,000 MB	10,000 MB
Monthly transfer	10 GB	40 GB	120 GB	300 GB
MySQL databases	3	15	50	200
POP3 mailboxes	25	200	600	2,000
Add-on domains	1	5	25	100
Shell account	—	on request	on request	on request

5,000 MB of disk space. We write it in megabytes because five gigabytes is a smaller-looking number, and we are not the only ones doing this.

Shell access is available on request, after a short conversation about what you intend to do with it.

Forum and community scripts

If you have bought a licence for vBulletin 3.0 or Invision Power Board, upload it: both want PHP 4 and MySQL, and both find what they need here. Everything in the one-click list installs from the panel instead.

Turn the image confirmation on before you announce the board rather than after. Every forum on this network is found by something that registers accounts within about a week of its first post.

Mail

SpamAssassin 3.0 and ClamAV run on the way in, and we publish SPF records for your domain on request. A second scheme was proposed in the spring, merged with the first and withdrawn in September over its licence terms, so we are waiting.

In January and again in May we spent a fortnight explaining to customers that the mail their address book sent was not sent by them.

Your mailbox quota comes out of the same disk as your website. That was uncontroversial until April, when a search company gave a gigabyte away by invitation and everybody recalculated what a gigabyte is. The invitations are traded on auction sites and in forum signatures, and we are now asked to match the number.

What is on the machines

Web server	Apache 1.3.31, or 2.0.52 on machines built this year
PHP	4.3.9 everywhere; 5.0.2 on the two beta servers, on request
MySQL	4.0.21. 4.1 is coming and is not going underneath your forum this year
Also installed	Perl 5.8.5, Python 2.3.4, mod_perl, GD, ImageMagick, cURL, ionCube
Statistics	AWStats 6.2, Webalizer and Urchin 5
Systems	Fedora Core 2, CentOS 3, FreeBSD 4.10
Windows	Windows Server 2003, IIS 6.0, ASP.NET 1.1, MS SQL 2000, ColdFusion MX 6.1

The beta servers are two machines. Nothing on them is guaranteed except that we tell you before a restart.

Resellers and the affiliate programme

Reseller accounts carry WHM 9 and RVSkin, so the panel your customers log into has your name on it and not ours. Overselling is permitted; the arithmetic is yours.

The SOAP interface to account provisioning now has a WSDL and a version number, and two resellers have written against it.

The affiliate programme has produced a small industry of websites that rank the top ten web hosts, and we appear on several of them. What it pays is in the agreement rather than on this page.

We do not otherwise advertise. In April a man in a chicken suit did more for one brand than this entire industry's advertising did all year, and the conclusion we drew from that was the one that suited us.

How we are compared

slophost

Interland

CIHost

Jumpline

Communitech

Apache, PHP, MySQL

Yes

Control panel

Yes

Nightly backup

Yes

PHP 5 on request

Yes

not stated

Shell on request

Yes

not stated

Compiled from the four sites customers send us when they ask why they should not move. The first three rows have been identical for three years, and that is the honest answer to the question.

Best viewed at 1024x768. At 800x600 the plan comparison is wider than the window and there is nothing either of us can do about that.

Compliance: Year 2000, Section 508, Sarbanes-Oxley and CAN-SPAM. Contact: e-mail, the ticket system, or the fax line, which is kept for the customers who have used it since 1996 and will not be moved.