The July Mini-Roundup
July 31, 2009 on 6:03 am | In Updates by Josh Jones | 28 CommentsWhoops, there hasn’t been a blog post in a while.
It’s not that we haven’t been doing anything interesting in the last month, it’s just how could I top the ping pong one?
And, I guess we haven’t really done anything SUPER interesting in the last month… just a lot of little SUB interesting things.
So strap on your spurs, get your lassos out, and clean the poop off your face, it’s time for a good old fashioned July DreamHost Feature round-up!
ROOT on PS
You’d have to venture prettttttttty far out on the prairie to find a single lonesome complaint about DreamHost PS (our VPS service). But let’s say you were out in Peoria, IL .. what complaint would you hear, whispered on the wind?
“Why don’t I get root (e.g. super-user e.g. administrator access) on DreamHost PS!”
And if you listened to that wind one second more, you’d likely hear, “Because you’ll come crying to us when you break everything!”
We are not here to help you with your problems. We’re not. Until now.
We’ve just added a new Manage Admin Users area to our web panel, whereby you can create users with FULL ROOT ACCESS to your private server(s)!
Of course, to add one, you do have to agree to some rather onerous terms:
I understand that the power of an Admin User is mighty and if wielded incorrectly it can cause major damage to my Private Server. I also understand that if I damage my own server through incorrect use of my Admin User power DreamHost’s Happy Tech Support Team may be unable to assist me in repairing the damage, and that I may be forced to reset my Private Server back to its DreamHost-approved configuration via the Reset My Server function of the DreamHost Web Panel.
Once you’ve created an admin user, if you’d like you can tell us to stop managing various aspects of your PS! And, as alluded to in the text above, you can even reset everything to our default configuration (user’s home directories will be untouched)!
Search the Panel
In simpler news, there’s now a search field at the top of the panel. It’s still beta, but not only will it do a Google search of all DreamHost-related sites, it also acts as something of a “command line” to our panel.
Try phrases like “renew domain” or just start typing in the name of any domain/user/email/database on your account!
It’s still “beta” .. we “plan” on making it way “smarter” and “faster” soon, but in the meantime it seemed “good enough” for you yokels.
Rearrange the Panel
In slightly more complicated news, did you notice you can now customize your navigation toolbox?
Just go back to our panel and drag and drop any menu items in the left to the toolbox at the top.. they’ll move!
And stay!
I swear to gopher.
Google AdWords Credit
I’m proud to say we finally caved in and now do what it seems like every other web host on the planet does: outsource our tech support to Wyoming!
AND offer free Google AdWords credits to new and existing DreamHost customers!
To find out what the deal is, and how much credit you get, just visit the Google AdWords area of our panel.
Get along little doggies!
Kill FTP Connections
Like some kind of undead e-tumbleweed, sometimes FTP connections you leave open never die.
If that happens too much, your entire server can become a virtual ghost town, completely choked with zombie FTP processes… potentially putting your user over the max connection limit!
Save yourself the hassle of writing in to support: kill those processes yourself with the new button for just that purpose over at our panel’s Manage Users section.
API Rate Limiting
Remember our sweety-pants application programing interface? Well, even after the original gold rush, its popularity has just been growing and growing.. so much so that we’ve had to impose a limit for run-away apps:
No more than 1000 API calls in an hour and no more than 5000 API calls in a day per key!
Don’t worry, that’s more calls than fort knox.
Wait A Second
I just realized something… the July newsletter is going to just be a link to this post!
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeee-haw.
28 Responses to “The July Mini-Roundup”
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July 31st, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Hahaha. Just curious…why did you pick Peoria, IL for your prairie comparison??
August 1st, 2009 at 7:05 am
Hey, my first job was doing tech support in Wyoming : )
But I would rather have the right to vote than bear arms anyday
August 2nd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I was always under the impression why dreamhostPS is priced as high as it is (compared to industry proven Linode and Slicehost) is because of the MANAGED aspect of the Private Server.
Does this imply Dreamhost will lower it’s pricing if you don’t Manage the Private Server
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:58 am
Dmos, you’re an idiot.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
@Tim There are a lot of great hosting services out there with different feature sets and pricing models. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a wide variety of hosting options, and the amount of choice is great for consumers. If you find something else that better meets your needs we respect that choice!
DreamHost PS is a one-of-a-kind service and we’ve seen a lot of demand for it. This new ‘admin user’ feature along with the hybrid managed/unmanaged system rolled out along with it are unique to the market and we think it’s priced competitively. We’re always keeping an eye on our competitors, though.
When you turn off our web panel management system we still generate example configuration files that you can use to base your own custom configurations off of. You get the benefit of our years of experience as well as the option to go ‘off road’ and customize the configuration. If you ever do find that you’ve goofed up your server config, you also have the option to reset your server back to the way it was just before you made customizations. We never leave you ‘without a paddle’ like some other services do.
August 3rd, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Tim,
You suck!
And dmos,
“perverted First Amendment” :) GO **** YOURSELF YOU WHINY *****
August 4th, 2009 at 8:17 am
“DreamHost PS is a one-of-a-kind service and we’ve seen a lot of demand for it.”
I agree that it’s a perfectly good business decision to keep the prices as high as possible to maximize the revenues/profits (if indeed the current pricing model does that – I for one have left DH because I needed a VPS and thought DH’s was too expensive).
That doesn’t mean though that it’s indeed the best “bang for the buck” that a user might get and that the flood of requests is because it is indeed a “unique” service (things are usually much more complicated than that).
August 5th, 2009 at 11:14 am
why do bears need arms anyways?
:-)
August 5th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I love this blog and your news letters. you rule.
August 5th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
@Andrei
>>”That doesn’t mean though that it’s indeed the best “bang for the buck” that a user might get and that the flood of requests is because it is indeed a “unique” service (things are usually much more complicated than that).”
Say what?
August 5th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
It’s nice the root access. But the price is way out of line. Even at the $10 that has been offered I can get a better deal at Linode. And with more RAM. The fact that you don’t differentiate the price for people that want to manage their machine and for those that don’t doesn’t seem like a reasonable pricing strategy. After all your costs will be lower, since there’s no management on your part of my account.
Either dreamhost awakes for the harsh but illuminating realities of the free market and updates the price for the non-managed VPS or I’ll go elsewhere. And I’m afraid I wont be the only one.
My suggestion: $15 total for the cheapest non-managed VPS.
August 5th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
@Tim
I only wanted to suggest that the “one-of-a-kind” boilerplate does not have much substance behind. The fact that DH is happy with the current demand might mean a lot of things (many shared users go with DH’s VPS offering because they are used to it and/or don’t want to move their sites elsewhere, or that DH currently has limited resources for offering VPSes and it would not be able to keep up with the demand if it lowered their prices etc.) and that in the long run they’ll have to lower their prices if they want to stay competitive in the VPS market.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Kill ftp
kill `ftpwho|awk ‘/my_user_name/{if($3==”["){split($4,o,"m")}else{split(substr($3,2),o,"m")};if(o[1]>15)print $1}’`
August 5th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Btw Josj that $75 credit mentioned in your July/Aug newsletter is only good if you haven’t already used an Adword promotional code at some other time, which I have. So there.
August 5th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Does that mean that we can now install and run MySQL / LightHTTPd localhost with DH PS servers?
August 6th, 2009 at 9:30 am
How about allowing a “sudo upgrade” for existing user accounts? I don’t really want to create a new one…
August 8th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Ey, you deleted my comment? Does that mean you support freedom of speech only for Nazis? Well, here once more:
What a nice site you run here! Looks like you’re rather busy cultivating an image of friendliness.
But then on the other hand you earn mony by hosting sites like alpen-donau.info, an Austrian site of Holocaust-deniers and Neonazis on which they call for what they call “national resistance”, which means for example calling for assaults on handicapped people, foreigners and people with a skin different from their own.
I know, now you will be hiding behind your perverted First Amendment and there is hardly something one can do from Austria – but still I can put a lot of efforts in damaging your image.
Be sure I will!
August 10th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Can I ask a little favor? How about email newsletters and blog posts with 50% less cutesy content, and 50% more reliable hosting instead? Because my DH site is down for the second time in two months and I’m starting to get really upset with you guys.
August 10th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Does your decision to outsource customer service to Wyoming have anything to do with the fact that it’s now taking over 48 hours to get a response to a support ticket (and a callback request no less, which costs more money)?
Even though all domains on our account are down due to your personnel, I have been unable to get a response as to how long a resolution will take, or even an update as to what is going on.
August 12th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
@Jason:
Wyoming? *peeks around corner at Tech Support crew* Nope, still based in Los Angeles. That’s the funniest bit of misinformation I’ve heard in awhile.
August 12th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
My cat’s breath smells like cat food.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:07 am
I know, now you will be hiding behind your perverted First Amendment and there is hardly something one can do from Austria – but still I can put a lot of efforts in damaging your image.
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:50 am
*knock knock* still alive?
September 14th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
http://www.zhangxiaoyu114.cn 好可爱啊，给你顶了。
September 19th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Did anyone else receive the July monthly newsletter on September 19th? (After the August newsletter!)
September 19th, 2009 at 8:36 am
I received. Strangely, the August one arrived yesterday, and this July today.
The septermber will probably come out only in a week, as all other newsletters, that arrive in the end of each month.
September 19th, 2009 at 10:11 am
And the reason I just received the July newsletter (a couple of days after I received the August newsletter, which is a few days before Summer officially turns to Fall (thank heavens)) is?
September 19th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
good!