Recommended hosts for Dolphin

Hi guys,

I have a webhost that doesn't work very well with Dolphin and I understand that most of the hosts out there have not full support for dolphin. So my question is what web-hosts are you running on that works well with Dolphin? Please also write advantage/disadvantage with your hosts as well as price.

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,

Mattias

Sorry, I just saw this; www.boonex.com/hosting/

But if you have any opinon on these sites or other sites please let me know :-)

You can always try x10hosting whitch if free (Banner Aided).

I use it and seam to have no trouble.

Use Terabyte , fully set up for Dolphin and they do the installation, works a treat, but DON'T use HostForWeb, they claim to be set up for Dolphin, but they are not, Ray isn't installed, and they will charge you $60 for installation.

Hostmonster works well for me. They have really good Live Help which is great when dealing with installs like Dolphin. And their uptime is pretty good. I run several sites through them and havent had any downtime.

Their hosting accounts are set-up with all the requirements for Dolphin. $5.95 a month.

I did once use Host For Web, as recommended by Boonex but I had security issues.

Hostmonster will, like all hosts recommend that you use Virtual Hosting for Video Streaming but you can set a site up on their regular shared hosting account and if it proves popular you can always upgrade.

Cheers

MD

Webhostingpad works perfectly for Dolphin. I was highly impressed. No errors!

godaddy is outstanding.

I just checked the pricing of theplanet.com

Their pricing seems very atttactive. Anyone uses their service?

Check out us -- http://www.Infrenion.com

Definately http://www.terabyte-hosting.com/ for me, take a look at what you get, and I'd say the back up is about 85%, which is very good, HFW wanted paying for every last thing they did, including installation of essential parts of Dolphin.

Also, http://www.terabyte-hosting.com/ install Dolphin and all associated (required) parts for you, couldn't be simpler.

Okay that is the biggest BS statement I have ever seen on here.  I've been with HFW, and while running a site is never simple and without problems, I can say that HFW has never charged me to fix a single item on my site or to optimize my servers to get Dolphin to run better.  In fact, if it's 4 AM and I need something, I have it within minutes.

These guys are more than happy to dig around inside of the code and figure out what is going on and how to fix it if the need arises, optimize servers, respond immediately to any hack threats/attempts and overall take care of their site owners.  Not bashing any other hosts in here, simply pointing out to you funswing you might want to take a little better care to not bash those in here you don't have any or much experience with.

Now, if your upset that HFW charged you to install dolphin, or told you it would cost money to install I might ask you this... When's the last time you did something for your boss for free?  Seems to me you might want to gather a little common sense and ethics and learn what it takes to run a business... I'll help ya out, you have to charge your customers for what you sell... And then you might be able to figure out the next step in running a busines... 

Now, to give a rundown on the guys your bashing...

1.  They offer a True VPS w/Partition which enables site owners to run their own RMS w/out the need to pay for a dedicated server or lease from someone else.  (This is up to each site owner as to what they want to do and to do what is in the best interest of their business)

2.  They offer a large # of Dedicated Server Packages and will also Custom Build a dedicated server if you need it to suit your sites need.  HFW does not use the world NO when it comes to creating a server that can handle any software script you elect to run.  Now, you will hear the word NO if your intentions are to do something illegal.

3.  They give true 24 hour support that is available via e-mail, chat & telephone for any and all site needs.  I have never had a time I could not talk directly to a tech at HFW, regardless of the day of the week, holiday or time. 

4.  They are experienced with the Dolphin script and innumerable other scripts in their tech department.  At HFW your not stuck with the knowledge of 3 or 4 techs and what they know, instead they have a vast array of techs with expert knowledge in most of the scripts and this experience is vital when you heavily modify a script and screw it up. 

Now, I will admit that Level 1 Tech support will sometimes make the error with file permissions, but those guys are entry level and the Level 2 & 3 guys will be quick to correct them when/if this happens as the Level 1 guys are just what the name implies, entry level. 

It's time to quit bashing hosts in here, regardless of who the host is simply because you had a bad experience with them.  HFW has been around for years and will continue to be around.  If you can prove a host defrauded you that is one thing, but just because you couldn't figure out how to make your site work and were issued an invoice to fix it does not mean they're doing anything wrong.  Remember, they are a hosting company whose primary goal is to make a profit from hosting sites, the same as any site owners primary goal is to make a profit by running a site.   

 Bullshit? They wanted $60 to install Ray, and $30 to install other items (each).

I have to say joombyte myself, not only on price but on support too.

http://www.joombyte.com/content/view/57/63/

They will even install dolphin for you with RMS if needed, all done in a few short hours.

Brilliant

.

Regards

.

Tyke

$60 to Install Ray and $30 to install other items (each), hmmm... Let's look at that again.  What does HFW do?  They are a hosting company.  As a hosting company when did they become a charity?  Do they not have a right to charge for something?  Oh I see... You want someone to do everything for you and you just sit back and say... Well, it was my idea to build this site and I leased the server, so now you can arrange it and build the site from there...

Okay, you obviously have a huge misconception on what being a site owner is... So let me move this into a realm you might understand.  Let's look at that little apartment a college student would rent and compare it to say... A bar (I have experience in owning those, still do) you might lease the space for.

Now, if you lease an apartment and the A/C goes out you would call the landlord to come over or send someone over to fix it at the landlords expense.

Now, if your leasing space for a bar and the A/C goes out, this is a commercial lease, so YOU have to contact an AC guy and YOU pay for him to fix the A/C that your business uses. 

In addition apartment will usually come with a refrigerator, stove and so on.  Commercial space usually comes as just space.  Meaning, you have to install the walls, the counters, the doors (except for the outside security doors), phone system, electrical upgrades to how you need it and many other things.

Now, when you go to open a little wordpress site they are treating you like an apartment renter, and they install all your software for you.  After all, the average apartment tenant does not have the knowledge and the same goes for the average blogger not having the knowledge of how to install the software.

Now, Dolphin is more like the bar, it requires you to either have knowledge of how to do many things or to seek that knowledge out.  At this point, if you don't know how to do something then you can either learn it by studying or ask someone else to do it.  You have chosen to ask someone else to do it, and did not like the fact that they gave you a bill for doing that. 

My question for you is:  Why should HFW pay someone to install items on YOUR site?  Do you think the people who work there work for free? 

Now, I can not only state, but even prove, that HFW will go far above and beyond the average host to correct an issue on a site that is hosted with them, if that site was working correctly and went down.  If it appears to be a server setting then they will fix it, if it is a hack they will help hunt it down for you (we spent almost 70 hours once tracking one and resolving it).  This they will do without charging because it's a server issue and it's what they are paid to do.  All you have to do is be willing to work with them patiently, share information both ways with them (this means you tell all you may have done and all things that are happening using screen shots if you have to and help them replicate the issue on their end). 

In addition, I can also state that if you ask Boonex for help politely, and provide them with all the information they need they will also normally respond within 24 hours during the work week, 48 hours on weekends and pay attention to what time it is for them, not the time where you are.  Neither company has to do this, as your a business when you create a site and this is a free source software program.  These companies I have personally seen bend over backwards to help out site owners, and not just myself, but other site owners also. 

My point is simple:  If your not prepared to handle the financial cost of building a site and expect others to do it for free then your not going to get very far in this business.  As far as HFW giving you an invoice for installing Ray, that is within reason.  If they are invoicing you to install modifications on your site then that is within reason, it's a business, not a charity.

To expand a bit mydatery . Its kinda like purchasing a mod, the price is x amount and the install in an extra x amount.

Time is money. Its one of the most important rules in business you can learn, you have to value your own time highly and respect other peoples time.

We all want to do more then just pay the bills why would a business owner invest 80-100 hours a week and most their savings on business and expect nothing in return.

I come from family of restaurant and owners I have spent most adult life being self employed its an investment.These forums and the time that people take to help each other out is a good as its going to get as far a free help.


Oh and I should say that I truly appreciate all the help I get from everyone thank you!!!!

 Quit talking out of your arse, I enquired of them before I signed up if all I had to do was install the Dolphin software and all, including the chat service wouldf be fully functional, they replied yes, my questions at the time were far more detailed, as i wanted to be sure.

So I signed up, paid my money, then when I asked why the chat and media sections didn't work, they said it's becuse RMS needs to be installed and they wanted £60 to do so in order for it to work, also that other modules would need to be installed to make the full suite fully functioning and those installations would be a further £30 each, they also said, that for security purposes only they could install these, a blatent rip off.

I have just moved from host4web as there vps's are very unsecure and they constantly suspended my sites every week saying i was security breaching, eventully found the eror to be theres and they offered no compensation whats so ever to lost time. there staff are hyelpful, but not very knowledgable, I now run my own hosting company and have done in the past, I understand its not a charity but however in this competitive market a little bit help can mean the difference of a customer staying or not.

btw if anyone does need secure stable hosting plesase mail me here for a special deal

Hi, you could try ZopfWare they offer RMS included with their Zpack3, and you can install Dolphin 6.0.3 direct from their control panel.  Upgrade is easy to 6.1.4 (or they will do it for you)  currently their price is $250.00/yr. for the Zpack3.

Note: The Zpack3 is in a shared server environment. Here are 2 sites you can look at that are using their shared Dolphin hosting server. http://northcoasthost.com and http://ladiesluvladies.com

All latest server security is current.

The VPS is not insecure, the script is insecure and we all know this.  In addition, there is no server that is 100% secure, regardless of what you do because there are individuals out there who like to hack.  Now, a VPS is as secure of a shared environment you will ever get, with a hard partition on it, it enables you to have SSH access without compromising other sites on the same box.  However, you are still sharing system resources (processor & memory) with others on the box.

If you want secure, then do what I did and go with your own machine that noone else is on.  Works much better and you can set up security as you want without regard to the hosting companies requirements.

Now, things I know for a fact HFW will do for it's customers without charge out of experience:

Install Mod_security

Mod_evasive

virus scanning

Bruteforce

firewalls

In addition, upon request and without question they will upgrade Apache, MySQL, PHP Versions, change file upload limits in the php.ini, modify .htaccess files to help you out if your not experienced and other items that are SERVER related.

Now, if you want them to Install Dolphin/Ray/Orca, your own RMS, phpBB3 or any other script then that is SITE related and you will be charged for it.  If you want to modify dolphin by installing Access Management inside of the Dolphin script, it may be a security item, but it is SITE SECURITY related and has no effect whatsoever on the server so your going to get charged for that. 

In the end it comes down to your statement: 

So I signed up, paid my money, then when I asked why the chat and media sections didn't work, they said it's becuse RMS needs to be installed and they wanted £60 to do so in order for it to work, also that other modules would need to be installed to make the full suite fully functioning and those installations would be a further £30 each, they also said, that for security purposes only they could install these, a blatent rip off.

You wanted them to install it for you for free.  As far as your statment concerning them not allowing anyone else to install Dolphin onto the server, that is a blatant lie, as HFW gives full Root SSH access to VPS owners and they don't care who does the install, that is up to you.  In fact, that would be a violation of US Law, and the fact their sitting in Chicago (definitely inside the US they follow it) in forcing you to use their guys to do all work on the site.  I have hired others to do work I did not have time for or did not know how to do and they had no problem with it, in fact they worked with them to resolve any issues that occurred without charging me for it and helped others do installs of Dolphin and HFW has worked with me to get their sites set up properly from the server side.

In the end, you get what you pay for.  If you want a bunch of free help with your site your going to have to accept a few things:

1.  Your going to stand in line until they have time to help you and when they're ready.

2.  Your going to get a warranty that will give you a refund for exactly what you paid for the work.  Tell you what, I'll send you one myself for all the free work you want.  Just drop me your address and I'll send you a check for $0.00 right away, as long as you send me stamp first.

3.  Your going to be limited in what your site can do as no one is going to go over the top to make your site full potential if your not willing to pay something for it.  So you can either learn to do it yourself, which is what this forum will help you to do or you can pay someone to do it for you.  Your choice.

And just so you know, 15 years now as a Financial Analyst as the owner of multiple bars for 8 years now, I have never given anything away to be successful.  Anyone who believes you should give your profession/product away is a good way to build and maintain customers has a customer base filled with leeches.

Well I have to eat my words, I've just found out that Sammie and Jimmy (aka DosDawg) are liars and thieves, they charged me in advance for hosting, then because I uploaded a template that I found on rapidshare, they have closed my account and kept my money, I wonder how many others they will defraud in this way?

As it stands I'm out of pocket to the tune of around £120.

http://www.terabyte-hosting.com = thieves, I am now receiving loads of abuse including profanity from Sammie, telling me to slate them all I want, I'm a newbie, so who will anyone believe, she is very proud to have stolen my money from me.

They are a disgrace.

I never stole a thing, I found a pack of mods on rapidshare, and they aren't suitable for 6.1.4 anyway.

I never installed a single mod, I uploaded a template, which wasn't suitable, this in no way compromised the site nor the server, these are just lies and excuses to cover your theft of my money.

Your attitude and foul mouth say far more about you than they do about me, you took my money, then used a feeble excuse not to provide what I paid for.

And for the record, I still have the personal messages on here that prove you are a liar, you advised me to go to terabyte, and said that you were no longer a part of it, of course I now know that not to be true, you are still very much a part of it.

I did nothing wrong, i did not use warez or bit torrent to obtain anything, and like I said, i never installed a single mod.

Funswing,

you are mistaken, in your accusation that we stole anything from you. the time it took to clean up the server was 10 hours, and this was because you uploaded a template that was compromised that you downloaded from a torrent site. anybody with a half a wit, knows full well that 95% of the files on torrents are compromised.

nobody made you pay up front, you paid up front because you wanted to. those funds will be utilized to contribute to the datacenter staff for spending 10 hours of this day cleaning up the 59k files that were created on the server because of one small mistake from you. a mistake that could have been avoided, a mistake that could have been costly in that many sites could have suffered grave damage. i consider this to be a mistake, but your attitude and position on this whole ordeal has been rotten. you were wrong, compromised a server, which ultimately could have created much havoc for many other site owners, site owners who pay for their mods, and you done this because you want the mods, but you dont want to pay for them.

if you find a place to host your site, please create an ftp account for me, and i will gladly move the files over for you. good luck and good bowling.

P.S. name isnt jimmy

Regards,
DosDawg

Where do you think those mods came from?  Do you think the mod creators just decided to put them up there for you?  Maybe they saw you grab a FREE copy of dolphin (pretty sure ya didn't even buy the licenses)... Your even to cheap to contribute $100 to Boonex and get those...

Let me explain this to you very clearly, and maybe Sammie will help ya out a little further by givin the cops your address... Your physical one... You don't have to break into something to steal dumbass... Receiving property that you know is stolen is the same thing as stealing.  You knew you had no rights to use those modifications and they came around and bit you in the arse... Now, you've proven quite well who's been talking out there arse and obviously your just a little bitch who enjoys creating issues and maintains a 3 year olds sense of entitlement to the world.

What I'd love to know is the name of his site so the other hosts will know to avoid him and his issues.  Have fun finding a host, not sure anyone is going to want you now.  Lots of them read this forum... And I'm pretty sure you've been locked out of the server for good reason, they may want to know why your former host has to do the file move. 

****Sammie, if you guys are going to do the move for him, please clean up his files so another hosts customers don't fall victim to this idiot...

I still don't believe that the folder I uploaded caused the problem, and I did my best to rectify the problem and asked for your help all the way, I'm sick of saying this, I didn't upload a mod, I uploaded a template, and the only reason I haven't paid for the mod is because I can't establish whether or not it works with 6.1.4 and you can't ask the mod writer unless you pay to join the expertzzz site, which is ridiculous.

I have been straight with you in all correspondence, and all this on here was caused by the torrents of foul and abusive language poured upon me by Sammie, if this would have been handled professionally, which no doubt had you dealt with it it would have been, it would never have come to this.

I found the mod package via a rapidshare search engine, had I have noticed the doplhin build it was meant for I never would have uploaded it in the first place, and if I'd have been able to establish from the mod writer that the mod I wanted was suitable, then I'd have purchased it.

And even if you do buy a mod from expertzzz there is no gurantee it works or is even safe as many are passing other people's mods as their own, and the owners of expertzzz do not have any control over this.

I made an error, that was it, and got hit with a torrent of foul and offensive language, that is what caused the problem to escalate, it was not handled in a professional manner.

And I have also said that i have had the file I uploaded examined by a professional and they have confirmed that the folder does not contain any back door scripts, it is as it is meant to be, a template file.

Would you like some toilet paper to clean your tongue and some metal polish for your halo?

They can provide my physical address if they like, as using file sharing sites isn't illegal, not only that, to have the folder of outdated mods in my posession isn't illegal either.

And where did these mods come from in the first place? Well obviously someone paid for them and decided to share them as they are out of date, but as you seem to know all the facts and have an insight into all things, maybe you are psychic, on that basis, would you be willing to provide me with this Saturdays lotto numbers? I promise I'll give you a cut.

Oh, and btw way, does name calling make you feel superior?