I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, before signing up. Any comments are appreciated. Thanks, Tom
Tom Davies wrote:> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just > looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, > before signing up. Any comments are appreciated. > > Thanks, > TomThose guys really knows Rails and the technical support is excellent. rgds Dema -- http://dema.ruby.com.br - Rails from a .NET perspective
On 7/11/05, Tom Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just > looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, > before signing up. Any comments are appreciated.They rock. I signed up with them, liked what I saw, and became a VC2 member. Recently, I started hosting a Rails app for work on one of their servers. We''ve been very pleased with their service and support. -- rick http://techno-weenie.net
I''ve been hosting with them for a while. My Rails app isn''t up yet, but I''m hosting a Textpattern and MovableType site. Support has been incredible - much better than anywhere else I''ve been. On 7/11/05, Rick Olson <technoweenie-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> On 7/11/05, Tom Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote: > > I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just > > looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, > > before signing up. Any comments are appreciated. > > They rock. I signed up with them, liked what I saw, and became a VC2 > member. Recently, I started hosting a Rails app for work on one of > their servers. We''ve been very pleased with their service and > support. > > -- > rick > http://techno-weenie.net > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
Take a look at the recent (maybe a month old) thread "Rails Hosting". Lots of good stuff in there about a bunch of different hosts. On Jul 11, 2005, at 6:17 PM, Tom Davies wrote:> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just > looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, > before signing up. Any comments are appreciated. > > Thanks, > Tom > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
Everyone else responded positively, so I feel it''s important to express a contrasting view. I''ve had a lot of problems with their web server going unreachable frequently for short periods of time. It never seems to be down too long, but when I was using their hosting a lot it happened regularily (like I personally noticed it a few times a day). I''m on the Davie server. Hopefully they worked this out, but I haven''t heard either way. Their support has been alright. One ticket I put in sat unanswered for over 48 hours, but others were responded to quickly. My 2 cents, -Bryan On 7/11/05, Tom Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just > looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, > before signing up. Any comments are appreciated.-- http://www.MyCongress.org/ -- coming soon
TextDrive is solid. The performance so far has been great, especially on my Rails apps. The technical support can be a bit slow to respond, but these guys know their shit. If I have a complaint, it''s that I don''t have the warm, fuzzy feeling I got with Tilted Planet, who were (comparatively) overpriced and underpowered but have awesome customer service. My sorrow at no longer having a guy in support (whom I knew by name) who I could count on to look into an issue within the hour is diminished considering that: * A Rails app that used to take up to 20 seconds to load and serve a single page on my old host now feels almost as snappy as my PHP scripts. And that''s in dev mode, using straight CGI. * Via Webmin I can totally customize my vhost, including changing my CGI-BIN for a domain without waiting for support to acknowledge my question. * Half my fees go to support Rails development. Woo-hoo. - DD On 7/11/05, Tom Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just > looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, > before signing up. Any comments are appreciated. > > Thanks, > Tom > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- === === === === === === === === === === === ==ddemaree-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org http://practicalmadness.com/
I have also noticed some sporadic downtime with Davie. It was very brief, but it was there. These guys know what they are doing and are very attentive. Actually, I think they beat anybody I have ever dealt with in response time. But there are a lot of newbie rails developers there(I would not exclude myself from that club), being THE rails hosting environment. And if you check the forums you will find a frustrated call out from the admins to stop pounding the servers with "Development" or "Testing" class rails apps. The more mature rails becomes, the stronger Textdrive will be. I think any real complaints about them as a host really is more a reflection of the nature of the Development environment of choice: rails. --Alan On 11-Jul-05, at 3:14 PM, Bryan Helmkamp wrote:> Everyone else responded positively, so I feel it''s important to > express a contrasting view. > > I''ve had a lot of problems with their web server going unreachable > frequently for short periods of time. It never seems to be down too > long, but when I was using their hosting a lot it happened regularily > (like I personally noticed it a few times a day). I''m on the Davie > server. > > Hopefully they worked this out, but I haven''t heard either way. > > Their support has been alright. One ticket I put in sat unanswered > for over 48 hours, but others were responded to quickly. > > My 2 cents, > > -Bryan > > On 7/11/05, Tom Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote: > >> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just >> looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, >> before signing up. Any comments are appreciated. >> > > -- > http://www.MyCongress.org/ -- coming soon > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
> * Half my fees go to support Rails development. Woo-hoo.IIRC, it''s half the *profit*, not half the *fee*. I''m not a TextDrive customer myself, but I contacted them last month with a couple of questions about their service (I was considering switching to it), and they didn''t get back to me for 6 days. That made me a bit wary.. Tyler
Similar for me... In general I''m happy as a customer, but I don''t think it''s as amazing as the majority of responses I see say it is. I''m on bidwell, and there are definitely sporadic outages. MySQL was down the other day, and the web server has gone away occasionally. Also, there were some performance issues, although apparently those are resolved (WebMin was nearly unusable during that time). As someone else mentioned, the tech support can sometimes be slow. One reason I had originally been attracted to them was that I heard all this feedback about near instantaneous support response, but that is not the case in my experience. The turn around time is ok, but not as good as I''d like. I''ve had times when it takes maybe 48 hours for a response. Now, having said that, the support itself is very good. The folks do definitely seem to know their stuff, have good solutions, and can handle any needs I''ve had to date. One thing I would point out is that, for the price, the level of support is outstanding in terms of what they''ll do for you. There are things they will charge you extra for, but most other hosting companies just flat out wouldn''t even provide that service - even many of the "expensive" ones. I also like the WebMin setup, it seems to work relatively well (they are working on their own variant, which hopefully will be even better). And, the Rails contributions, and expertise in hosting is a definite plus IMHO. I have 9 domains there, and am overall happy, especially for the price (when I factor in the price, the sometimes slow response, and the occasional problems pretty much become non-issues in the overall). On 7/11/05 3:14 PM, "Bryan Helmkamp" <bhelmkamp-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote:> Everyone else responded positively, so I feel it''s important to > express a contrasting view. > > I''ve had a lot of problems with their web server going unreachable > frequently for short periods of time. It never seems to be down too > long, but when I was using their hosting a lot it happened regularily > (like I personally noticed it a few times a day). I''m on the Davie > server. > > Hopefully they worked this out, but I haven''t heard either way. > > Their support has been alright. One ticket I put in sat unanswered > for over 48 hours, but others were responded to quickly. > > My 2 cents, > > -Bryan > > On 7/11/05, Tom Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org> wrote: >> I am considering moving to TextDrive for shared hosting. I am just >> looking for some feedback from anyone who has used them, good or bad, >> before signing up. Any comments are appreciated.
They''ve rubbed me the wrong way, unfortunately. I decided to throw them $12 just to take a look at what their service offered... I run my own servers currently but was interested because of the buzz I was hearing. Anyway, I wasn''t that impressed with the management interface, etc, but didn''t really have the time to put it the full service to the test. I looked at it as simply helping a company that helps open source, all in all a "good thing". I made a mental note to cancel the account soon and promptly forgot about it until the end of the month. Turns out, I missed cancelling before the end of my billing period by a few days, so they charged me the full $12 for the next month, even though I hadn''t used a bit of the service since the first few days and even explained my case to management. I''m all for paying for what I use, but they should at least prorate refunds (many do). Also, beware of their Terms of Service (#17 under Client Responsibilities, specifically)...I found this post in their forums after I mistakenly removed my public_html directory...an honest (and undocumented as far as how it affects others) mistake: http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?pid=29899 I won''t be using them again. John
They''ve rubbed me the wrong way, unfortunately. I decided to throw them $12 just to take a look at what their service offered... I run my own servers currently but was interested because of the buzz I was hearing. Anyway, I wasn''t that impressed with the management interface, etc, but didn''t really have the time to put it the full service to the test. I looked at it as simply helping a company that helps open source, all in all a "good thing". I made a mental note to cancel the account soon and promptly forgot about it until the end of the month. Turns out, I missed cancelling before the end of my billing period by a few days, so they charged me the full $12 for the next month, even though I hadn''t used a bit of the service since the first few days and even explained my case to management. I''m all for paying for what I use, but they should at least prorate refunds (many do). Also, beware of their Terms of Service (#17 under Client Responsibilities, specifically)...I found this post in their forums after I mistakenly removed my public_html directory...an honest (and undocumented as far as how it affects others) mistake: http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?pid=29899 I won''t be using them again. John
John Wells wrote:>Also, beware of their Terms of Service (#17 under Client Responsibilities, >specifically)...I found this post in their forums after I mistakenly >removed my public_html directory...an honest (and undocumented as far as >how it affects others) mistake: > >http://forum.textdrive.com/viewtopic.php?pid=29899 > >Why not just have, chmod 755 chown ${user} some-group /home/${user}/ chmod 755 chown ${user} some-group /var/www/${user}/ chmod 755 chown root root /var/www ln -s /var/www/${user} /home/${user}/public_html Then you point the user directory to the /var/www/${user} that a given user cannot delete and is accessible though /home/${user}/public_html symlink. This is not rocket science. There are ways of making directories permanent. - Adam
I can''t speak for tech support, but pre-sales is very slow. It took them two weeks to get back to me on my latest query. They apologized and all, but that is a long time...> From: Christopher Bailey <chris-yzaz/rx7IpEXSVZzYpeOkQC/G2K4zDHf@public.gmane.org> > Reply-To: <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> > Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 20:14:23 -0700 > To: "Bryan Helmkamp , rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org" <bhelmkamp-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>, Tom > Davies <atomgiant-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>, Rails <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> > Subject: Re: [Rails] TextDrive feedback > > As someone else mentioned, the tech support can sometimes be slow.
I can''t speak for/against TextDrive but if you are looking for dedicated hosting, Rackspace has been an EXCELLENT experience for us for the last for years. We''re now pushing over a terabyte/month in bandwidth and their support rocks.> From: John Wells <jb-y8WhZ5XeQqVfbyii3fMa5/Z4XP/Yx64J@public.gmane.org> > Reply-To: <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> > Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:46:16 -0400 (EDT) > To: <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> > Cc: "Bryan Helmkamp , rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org" <bhelmkamp-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>, > Rails <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> > Subject: Re: [Rails] TextDrive feedback > > They''ve rubbed me the wrong way, unfortunately. I decided to throw them > $12 just to take a look at what their service offered... I run my own > servers currently but was interested because of the buzz I was hearing.
With bandwidth costs like that, you better believe they will give you awesome service... ;-) Remember folks, for the most part, at least from what I know, Textdrive is nowhere near the kind of scale a place like Rackspace is... --Alan On 11-Jul-05, at 9:31 PM, Hunter Hillegas wrote:> I can''t speak for/against TextDrive but if you are looking for > dedicated > hosting, Rackspace has been an EXCELLENT experience for us for the > last for > years. > > We''re now pushing over a terabyte/month in bandwidth and their support > rocks. > > >> From: John Wells <jb-y8WhZ5XeQqVfbyii3fMa5/Z4XP/Yx64J@public.gmane.org> >> Reply-To: <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> >> Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:46:16 -0400 (EDT) >> To: <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> >> Cc: "Bryan Helmkamp , rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org" >> <bhelmkamp-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>, >> Rails <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> >> Subject: Re: [Rails] TextDrive feedback >> >> They''ve rubbed me the wrong way, unfortunately. I decided to >> throw them >> $12 just to take a look at what their service offered... I run my own >> servers currently but was interested because of the buzz I was >> hearing. >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
> ln -s /var/www/${user} /home/${user}/public_html > > Then you point the user directory to the /var/www/${user} that a given > user cannot delete and is accessible though /home/${user}/public_html > symlink. > > This is not rocket science. There are ways of making directories permanent.Or there''s what textdrive does: http://weblog.textdrive.com/article/91/textdrive-makes-us-happy This hasn''t been an issue for a long time.> - Adam > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Cheers Koz
Michael Koziarski said:> Or there''s what textdrive does: > > http://weblog.textdrive.com/article/91/textdrive-makes-us-happy > > This hasn''t been an issue for a long time.Perhaps. I think the scarier issue is the general attitude the forum post conveys and the power the TOS places in their hands. They don''t exude a customer-focused stance at all...not the type of attitude I typically like to deal with, ESPECIALLY in a hosting situation. My two cents (or $24, as it were). John
On Jul 11, 2005, at 10:48 PM, John Wells wrote:> Perhaps. I think the scarier issue is the general attitude the > forum post > conveys and the power the TOS places in their hands. They don''t > exude a > customer-focused stance at all...not the type of attitude I > typically like > to deal with, ESPECIALLY in a hosting situation. > > My two cents (or $24, as it were). > > JohnWell, since it''s my general attitude that you''re talking about. Our support''s always been great but support''s a two way street and sometimes it''s not going to work out for a variety of reasons. We''re a company started by customers of other hosting companies that also happened to be good sysadmins and were developing stuff like textpattern, wordpress, rubyonrails, punbb, .... The third person at this company was David, the first rails install here was 0.6, all of our internal development has been in Rails and everything we''re pushing out now is Rails-based. The entire point of the company is to provide a top-notch hosting environment to users (one user base just happens to be working with something that''s very much in progress) and give them the opportunity - to give a "job" to open source developers, - to provide servers to projects, - to provide development space to projects, - a real workflow for projects, - and to try and renovate some server level issues. I personally ran the first svnadmin create and trac-admin initenv on each of these projects (including Rails). And to continue with a rails-relevant example, we''re the reason why alternative servers like lighttpd are even being used. Every fastcgi supporting web server has been used here once they''re released (there''s even a few in testing that aren''t public) and lighttpd was something we happen to be using well over a year ago, because it did php-fcgi exactly how I like it. There''s also some confusion as to how much goes to the RoR project, it''s not half of net profits, it''s half of operating profits, that''s (revenue - server&colo-cost)*50%. The idea is simple, take half of *operating profits* and use it to fund the software project and take other half to fund the sysadmins and servers. That amounts to about 42% of what you pay going directly to the project that you''re supporting. Then people like myself, I''m a gainfully employed PhD scientist (in big pharma) with a business background that''s been helping some developer friends be able to stay in "business". I don''t take a salary for "running" TextDrive, but have managed to keep it entirely in the black and I''m proud of what it''s done for these projects and what it''s even going to do in the very near future. The near future involves a very grown-up hardware setup (I do bioinformatics and computational chemistry on large-ish clusters, so it''s not entirely foreign) and a Rails-based control panel (for everything). OK, there''s a forum post (our forum is completely transparent, educational, and the community is as smart as they come) where it''s pointed out that someone was moving around their document roots and then deleted it. Yes, that was posted. Yes, people are allowed to move their document roots to be things that we aren''t even aware of. Yes, it occasionally brings down an Apache instance. Yes, there was this like week there where it was amazingly frequent. Yes there''s a Terms of Service. Is there some knee-jerk, mean-spirited, anti-user TOS-hammer? Absolutely not. Instead that entire experience has driven an effort on our part to put together a functioning dynamic backend on a web server that supports fastcgi. So that''s just my 2 cents. And John if you feel that you''re somehow been cheated out of $24, then feel free to email me. One shouldn''t walk around feeling that way. - Jason
I''ve had a few bad experiences with textdrive, mainly with rebooting servers and apache''s shared config being munged by user error (preventing me from working). I realize all this can be unavoidable, and that hosting is a hard business. Finally, while users do make mistakes, I don''t feel that the occasionally patronizing, hostile tone of some of the support staff is helpful. For example, I requested reservation of two high ports to run lighttpd, was told that there is an acceptable range X-Y, so I ran my two apps. They were killed off later on, and we received an abrasive e-mail about how we have to reserve ports. Despite all this, I''ll continue with them because I think they will grow out of these pains, but mostly because of Rails. Joshua
On Jul 12, 2005, at 1:13 AM, Joshua Sierles wrote:> For example, I requested reservation of two high ports to run > lighttpd, was told that there is an acceptable range X-Y, so I ran my > two apps. They were killed off later on, and we received an abrasive > e-mail about how we have to reserve ports.Yes, likely my fault. I was handing out ports by stating a narrow range, without telling the firewall and monitoring people. They would have only been killed off by or triggered a monitor if they were doing something peculiar. - Jason
Thanks for all the feedback. I was only expecting one or two people to respond :) That was very informative. Although there were some negative experiences, none of them were unreasonable or unexpected in a shared host environment. I really like what TextDrive stands for and will sign up to be a part of it. The fact that they integrate SVN in addition to nearly any web configuration you could ask for definitely sets them apart from the crowd. Thanks again. Tom On 7/12/05, Jason A. Hoffman <jason-xKtDo/uLHBtl57MIdRCFDg@public.gmane.org> wrote:> On Jul 12, 2005, at 1:13 AM, Joshua Sierles wrote: > > > For example, I requested reservation of two high ports to run > > lighttpd, was told that there is an acceptable range X-Y, so I ran my > > two apps. They were killed off later on, and we received an abrasive > > e-mail about how we have to reserve ports. > > Yes, likely my fault. I was handing out ports by stating a narrow > range, without telling the firewall and monitoring people. They would > have only been killed off by or triggered a monitor if they were > doing something peculiar. > > - Jason > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >
I had a bad experience also, you can check the list archives this subject has been brought up before. By the way, Jason, I was told you guys didn''t issue refunds. How would you expect me to know that you would issue a refund when you tell your support staff otherwise? -Jeff ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jason A. Hoffman" <jason-xKtDo/uLHBtl57MIdRCFDg@public.gmane.org> To: "Joshua Sierles" <jsierles-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>; <rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org> Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 2:19 AM Subject: Re: [Rails] TextDrive feedback> On Jul 12, 2005, at 1:13 AM, Joshua Sierles wrote: > >> For example, I requested reservation of two high ports to run >> lighttpd, was told that there is an acceptable range X-Y, so I ran my >> two apps. They were killed off later on, and we received an abrasive >> e-mail about how we have to reserve ports. > > Yes, likely my fault. I was handing out ports by stating a narrow range, > without telling the firewall and monitoring people. They would have only > been killed off by or triggered a monitor if they were doing something > peculiar. > > - Jason > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
Jason A. Hoffman said:> So that''s just my 2 cents. > > And John if you feel that you''re somehow been cheated out of $24, thenfeel free to email me. One shouldn''t walk around feeling that way. Jason, Thanks for your reply. I do appreciate the help you guys offer to the community and how you''ve pushed the RoR technology forward, but keep in mind $$ are $$, and most folks are happy to pay for services they receive and use but not for those they don''t. I realize I was late in cancellation, but had I actually logged in or touched the account at all except to try and find out where to cancel, my take would be different. If you look at my traffic for that month I was a subscriber, I think you''ll find I may have touched the site 2 or 3 times. My point is not to argue about a measly $12, but more about the general approach. I agreed to the fine print, and that clearly states that the charge will no be prorated. However, a successful business is typically a customer-focused business, and that $12 refund (or, $10, pro-rated) would likely buy you more than it cost you as far a future business, recommendations, etc. go. The request was for information about your service, and I think my experience is valid as information and caveat. Here''s the response from your support I received (full thread here: http://textdrive.com/support/index.php?_a=tickets&_m=listview&_i=VIE-19169) ------------------------ How to cancel my account? Hi John, I''m afraid the point is you were already a few days into your second month of hosting (which began on the 25th) when you cancelled (on the 30th). Had you let us know before we actually charged your card that you were cancelling then we wouldn''t have done it, but even that would be a stroke of luck: a monthly account is just that: billed monthly, and we don''t offer pro-rated refunds for partial periods. Best regards, Dean Allen TextDrive Ticket Details ========Ticket ID: VIE-19169
Any host that does *not* offer FTP because it sends password clear text, (whilst obvious to most), knows it stuff. And employs the best solution even if that involves customers switching/upgrading/learning software.
I''ve had many moments of sheer joy, and many moments of heartache on Textdrive. The moments of joy have all been because someone has helped me get a site up and running or a problem solved, but (nearly) all the moments of heartache have had more to do with my newbieness (moving from a Win32 ASP.Net <http://ASP.Net> background) than with any failings on Textdrives behalf. Yes, there have been the occasionally flaky server (dying mainly due to the previously mentioned missing public_html directories). Yes, there is the odd time that support can take more than 12 hours to respond to a ticket. But I have never used a host in the past where there was actually a sense of community from the users. People feel as though they are part of Textdrive, in a way that I haven''t seen elsewhere. Forum posters proudly display their number they got when signing up for the VC releases. People invest themselves in Textdrive, and that''s what makes it great. If I have a problem, there is always someone who can help, or who can point me in the right direction. That person may not always be paid by Textdrive, but they are always part of it. On 7/13/05, Kris Leech <krisleech-BSIDdvZawMx9qp0gCGiW7Q@public.gmane.org> wrote:> > Any host that does *not* offer FTP because it sends password clear text, > (whilst obvious to most), knows it stuff. > And employs the best solution even if that involves customers > switching/upgrading/learning software. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails >-- Jordan Brock Spin Technologies www.spintech.com.au <http://www.spintech.com.au> _______________________________________________ Rails mailing list Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
Jason, this was a great response. As one of the folks who posted a bit of negative (but am overall very happy), I really liked reading this. It sheds more light on how the operation is run, the goals behind it, and I really just like knowing what the people running it are like, etc. This endears me to TextDrive that much more. Thanks for the info. On 7/12/05 12:04 AM, "Jason A. Hoffman" <jason-xKtDo/uLHBtl57MIdRCFDg@public.gmane.org> wrote:> On Jul 11, 2005, at 10:48 PM, John Wells wrote: > >> Perhaps. I think the scarier issue is the general attitude the >> forum post >> conveys and the power the TOS places in their hands. They don''t >> exude a >> customer-focused stance at all...not the type of attitude I >> typically like >> to deal with, ESPECIALLY in a hosting situation. >> >> My two cents (or $24, as it were). >> >> John > > Well, since it''s my general attitude that you''re talking about. > > Our support''s always been great but support''s a two way street and > sometimes it''s not going to work out for a variety of reasons. > > We''re a company started by customers of other hosting companies that > also happened to be good sysadmins and were developing stuff like > textpattern, wordpress, rubyonrails, punbb, .... The third person at > this company was David, the first rails install here was 0.6, all of > our internal development has been in Rails and everything we''re > pushing out now is Rails-based. > > The entire point of the company is to provide a top-notch hosting > environment to users (one user base just happens to be working with > something that''s very much in progress) and give them the opportunity > > - to give a "job" to open source developers, > - to provide servers to projects, > - to provide development space to projects, > - a real workflow for projects, > - and to try and renovate some server level issues. > > I personally ran the first svnadmin create and trac-admin initenv on > each of these projects (including Rails). And to continue with a > rails-relevant example, we''re the reason why alternative servers like > lighttpd are even being used. Every fastcgi supporting web server has > been used here once they''re released (there''s even a few in testing > that aren''t public) and lighttpd was something we happen to be using > well over a year ago, because it did php-fcgi exactly how I like it. > > There''s also some confusion as to how much goes to the RoR project, > it''s not half of net profits, it''s half of operating profits, that''s > (revenue - server&colo-cost)*50%. The idea is simple, take half of > *operating profits* and use it to fund the software project and take > other half to fund the sysadmins and servers. > > That amounts to about 42% of what you pay going directly to the > project that you''re supporting. > > Then people like myself, I''m a gainfully employed PhD scientist (in > big pharma) with a business background that''s been helping some > developer friends be able to stay in "business". I don''t take a > salary for "running" TextDrive, but have managed to keep it entirely > in the black and I''m proud of what it''s done for these projects and > what it''s even going to do in the very near future. The near future > involves a very grown-up hardware setup (I do bioinformatics and > computational chemistry on large-ish clusters, so it''s not entirely > foreign) and a Rails-based control panel (for everything). > > OK, there''s a forum post (our forum is completely transparent, > educational, and the community is as smart as they come) where it''s > pointed out that someone was moving around their document roots and > then deleted it. Yes, that was posted. Yes, people are allowed to > move their document roots to be things that we aren''t even aware of. > Yes, it occasionally brings down an Apache instance. Yes, there was > this like week there where it was amazingly frequent. Yes there''s a > Terms of Service. Is there some knee-jerk, mean-spirited, anti-user > TOS-hammer? Absolutely not. > > Instead that entire experience has driven an effort on our part to > put together a functioning dynamic backend on a web server that > supports fastcgi. > > So that''s just my 2 cents. > > And John if you feel that you''re somehow been cheated out of $24, > then feel free to email me. One shouldn''t walk around feeling that way. > > - Jason > _______________________________________________ > Rails mailing list > Rails-1W37MKcQCpIf0INCOvqR/iCwEArCW2h5@public.gmane.org > http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails