Lobby Pong

Here at DreamHost, we’re as serious about web hosting as we are about ping pong. And if we need more room for servers — or a quick doubles game — we’re totally in favor of expansion.

So when the situation calls for it, we move our table into the elevator lobby on our floor…

It doesn’t have a view like our regular ping pong room does, but we crash into the walls way less this way. And as people who host here can attest, crashing less is always a good thing.

Dime a Dozen

Another week, another Happy DreamHost Customer with a gold medal.

And don’t try and say Shawn Johnson isn’t happy either!

Just look at those teeth!

Congratulations Shawn, and we appreciate you leaving the .dreamhosters.com in www.shawnjohnson.dreamhosters.com, no matter how trashy it looks!

(You know, those are really supposed to just be temporary domains, right?)

So far we haven’t had to do anything special to keep her blog up.. I guess since it’s not her main site.

This is actually getting kind of weird… what, did Nastia refer you to get the 97 bucks?

Just Your Average Happy DreamHost Customer

Congratulations, Nastia!

It’s unfortunate about your name, but at least you’ve got a gold medal!

Which is more than you can say for most Happy DreamHost Customers!

Domain Name: NASTIALIUKIN.COM
Created on: 07-MAR-02
Expires on: 08-MAR-09
Last Updated on: 17-FEB-08

Administrative, Technical Contact:
Liukin, Nastia liukinfan2004@yahoo.com.au
nil
PO Box 5727
Hughes
Canberra, ACT 2605
AU
0407266797

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.DREAMHOST.COM
NS2.DREAMHOST.COM
NS3.DREAMHOST.COM

(Early this morning, one of our shared web servers ovaltine started crashing. We quickly narrowed it down to nastialiukin.com. At her website manager’s request, we moved her temporarily to a different shared server with nobody else on it. It also kept crashing!

So, we switched her (static html) site from Apache to lighttpd and immediately the load dropped from 200 to .2 (unfortunately, lighttpd is really only good for static files).. but then the network port started to saturate!

To deal with that, (again at her website manager’s request) we turned off the auto-playing flash mp3 streamer on the front of her site (who wants those anyway), and then things were finally under control!)

Go visit and watch that visitor # in the corner GROW!

Camping Out

Disclaimer: This post isn’t really about camping — unless you’re talking about the kind that really passionate nerds do — so if you were expecting to read about bug spray, beans and campfires, you might want to ignore everything below.

As the resident WordPress nerd around these parts, I get to spend a lot of my time at DreamHost solving super interesting blog problems.  Knowing about security holes, plugins that don’t play nicely with our environment, working around weird quirks and staying on top of the bleeding edge is all in a day’s work for me.  Sometimes, dealing with the really hard issues are kind of a hassle — but mostly I’m just happy that someone’s paying me to mess around with blog software.  After all, making a living doing something you love is pretty freaking sweet.

Seriously.  Try it if you ever get the chance.

Anyhow, since I’m sort of a big geek, I’m actually getting pretty psyched for WordCamp San Francisco this weekend.  Not only will the road trip up from Los Angeles give me a chance to make another lip dub or two — but I’ll also get to hang out with the likes of Matt Mullenweg, Tantek Çelik, Om Malik and the SEO Rapper.

It’s the last one on the list that I’m a little more excited about. I mean, I’ve met and talked with Matt at the last two WordCamps and see Tantek down in LA every now and then — but the SEO Rapper is on YouTube! That makes him internet famous enough that my mom might have heard of him!

Just in case I get too star struck, we’ll have a couple other DreamHosters there to pull me away and calm me down.  If you see one of us (pictured above) in the hall, feel free to come up and say hi, okay?

Hot off the presses

Earlier this year DreamHost was named as one of only twenty five companies worldwide to be recognized as having a democratic workplace by the WorldBlu Organization.

What’s that mean? It means that we listen to our employees. It means we’re transparent in how we do things and why we do them. It means that, coincidentally, we’re also a great place to work!

Axiom News of Canada recently recognized our commitment to the democratic workplace in a three-part series.

E-meetings Engage all DreamHost Employees in Corporate Decision-Making

We really don’t have too many meetings around here. We use email lists. A lot. We don’t restrict employees from joining any list - in fact, we encourage it. If someone in tech support wants to listen in on our developers or system administrators, they’re welcome to do so! If anyone has a suggestion for system improvements, or a general comment about our operations, it shows up on an email list first.

DreamHost’s Unique Profit-Sharing System Results in High Morale, Strong Retention

We’ve literally been giving our company away since the very beginning. Every DreamHost employee is issued units in the company. (Units are kind of like the equivalent of ’stock options’ for an LLC.) At most companies those options are sold to employees at a discount - but not at DreamHost. We just go ahead and GIVE them to our employees at no cost. Once you’ve been working here for a reasonable amount of time you’re actually made an owner of the company!

Flat Management Structure Promotes Productivity, Retention at DreamHost

There are no cubicles at DreamHost. Our open-door policy springs from our roots as a dot-com startup, when teams were small and titles were meaningless. Our teams have grown since then and we’re still not too big on titles, but one thing we haven’t done is closed the door on inter-company communication.

We’re honored to have been recognized by WorldBlu and Axiom News. It’s a good feeling to see people interested in promoting what we’ve considered to be basic business practices from day one.

DreamHost really is a great place to work, and we’re always on the lookout for new talent to add to our team. If any of what you’ve just read appeals to you, be sure to check out our open positions and send in your resume today!