Mostly Harmless » Web Hosting

Slicehost 2.5 Year Review

Rowan — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 10:43:54 +0000

Most of what I said here stands. In the time I was with Slicehost the hardware I was on had an issue requiring a reboot once, other than that the service and network was solid across the entire two and a half years. I didn’t have much reason to call on their support so can’t [...]

Thoughts on Green Hosting

Rowan — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:20:52 +0000

At work we had a query recently asking if we offered any “green” hosting packages. My initial reaction was a roll of the eyes and slight annoyance. This is because in my book “green hosting” sounds like a total oxymoron. Computers, for a variety of reasons aren’t exactly the most environmentally friendly things in the [...]

How long can a vulnerable web script last online before it is compromised?

Rowan — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 14:10:21 +0000

Remember some years ago now all the (justifiable) furore around how long you could connect a vulnerable Windows PC to the net for before it got hacked / infected? The statistic ended up being 20 minutes, i.e not long at all.

I’ve not seen any similar research (at least as widely publicised) for popular web [...]

Slicehost Review – Initial Impressions

Rowan — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:24:50 +0000

I Decided back in the Summer that I would ditch Servage when my renewal came around in the Autumn, I’ll discuss why in a separate updated final review. In short I wanted a system I had as near to 100% control over as possible, so that meant a VPS. Hosting my own and my family’s [...]

Hacked WordPress Recovery

Rowan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:53:37 +0000

Interesting to see this post from WP developer Donnacha, on removing various popular nasties from a wordpress install after it has been hacked or compromised.

At work we often see instances where it is not possible to simply return a user’s CMS install to a pre-hack backup and then upgrade (the safest course of action) [...]

Easier updating with WordPress

Rowan — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 13:25:23 +0000

I’ve been pleased to see the inclusion of an update warning in recent versions of WordPress when new versions are released. Coupled with the plugins page that now tells you when updates are available for your installed addons the system is becoming a lot easier for the non technical user to maintain, even if they [...]

Microsoft Smart Network Data Services (snds)

Rowan — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:57:41 +0000

If you run an email server, you may be interested to have a look at Microsoft’s Smart Network Data Services tool. Providing you can authenticate yourself as the administrator of the IP address in question you can view statistics on the volume and type of email sent to hotmail / live.com / msn. This includes [...]

Mounting an FTP account on Linux

Rowan — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 16:27:33 +0000

Learning to use the command line is one of the hardest things about moving to Linux, however once you’re used to it, doing things becomes second nature and you actually miss being able to use the terminal in those cases where you have FTP access but no shell account. For some things using a GUI [...]

Nominet Registrar Information Day

Rowan — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:01:17 +0000

I was lucky enough a week or two back to get a day away from the screen up in London to attend Nominet’s registrar information day. The event had a sensible start time of 9.30 for registration (presentations starting at 10.00) making travelling up the same day just about possible (i.e getting up at 5 [...]

Configuring Tracks on Servage

Rowan — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 19:09:53 +0000

I’ve spent the last day trying to get support for a Tracks install on Servage that went from running a little bit slow to not running at all, here is what I found out. It also provides a little insight into how not to deal with customers problems with third party scripts.

Wasting time [...]