I’m Back Online [Thank God]

Well folks, it was a rough few days. Not physically, of course, other than the exertion of moving all my belongings 100 miles, but the hardest part was the lack of Internet access. The image you see to the right here is of my dinky little MetroPCS phone – the one that barely gets me online so I can send updates to Twitter and check what’s going on into my GMail account.

Don’t laugh. It’s not nice.

Just shy of a week is the longest I’ve ever been offline in the last ten years (aside from when Hurricane Wilma blew through South Florida), and when it’s not a survival situation, it’s amazing how much that hurts. The lack of ambient awareness of what is going on in my world, the online world, is definitely palpable.

Still, I imagine it did me a bit of good being offline.  More time with the kids, the wife got to see more than the back of my head for extended periods of time. I had time to re-arrange my sock drawer. I was even driven to dust off a copy of SimCity 3000 and build a nice little seaside town.

I’m presently officing out of the Big in Japan coworking space at the famed Dallas Infomart, a smart open office that often plays host to the various Dallas <InsertWordHere>Camps. They’ve got a smoking fast Internet connection and a bunch of nice people from various web, mobile and tech startups and established companies in and out all day.

I’m here because AT&T still hasn’t connected my DSL line as promised, though I expect it to be on any day now (the latest promise is by 8 PM tonight – we’ll see).

Until then I’ll be coming down here fairly regularly to check in, and when the connection comes up at home, I’ll be back to my regular blogging frequency at /socnets and /robots.

Expect regular updates to resume here.

KnownHost VPS Christmas Offer

They actually has a good one, so I wanted to share it :) Never tried them tho. But, I looked on some reviews on other websites and they tend to be positive, so good luck :)
Here it goes:

**Uptime
**High Performance Servers
**Cutting Edge Technology

**Fast/Reliable Support
**White Label IP's
**A host you KNOW and trust

KnownHost is proud to announce their new promotion KHXMAS which gets you [b]50% off your first TWO months of hosting followed by a 10% LIFETIME DISCOUNT on our VPS L plan and above. We make it easy and inexpensive for you to get started today! These discounts also apply to control panels, memory upgrades, billing systems, IP's, etc which are placed with your original order. This special is being held for a limited time only and will expire on December 31st 2008 so please get one while they're hot.
**Please note, This promotion is NOT valid on our VPS M plan and is for monthly subscriptions only. Our billing system will accept the coupon with quarterly/annual payments but our sales team will delete all quarterly/annual orders placed with the coupon so please do not use it.

All VPS packages KnownHost offers are based on Virtuozzo 4.0 and backed by Premium Bandwidth such as Internap & Level 3 in the Texas Datacenter and in the California Datacenter backed by Qwest, Sprint, Level 3, Global Crossing, Savvis, PCCW, Tiscali and Teleglobe.

To receive the current promotion please use the coupon code KHXMAS when placing your order.

Why choose KnownHost?

• Founders have over 15 years of experience in the hosting industry
• Ranked #1 by Hyperspin with a current 99.993% uptime with 100+ servers -http://hyperspin.com/ranking.php?type=2
• Web Host Magazine Editors' Choice Award Winner for VPS Hosting
• Named one of the "Top 10" fastest growing companies in the web hosting industry for 2007
• Free full migration assistance (with the same control panel)
• Always improving our services based on customers feedback
• 30 day money back guarantee
• We OWN all our hardware and equipment **Powerful Custom Built Servers, RAID 10 for Redundancy, 8-16 of Fully Buffered RAM.
• A la carte RAM, Bandwidth and Disk Space upgrades
• Realistic package specifications vs price

All VPS’s include the following:

• Virtuozzo Technology
• Virtuozzo Powerpanel
• Unlimited domains on all control panel options
• FREE Setup
• 24/7 FULLY MANAGED support by seasoned professionals - http://www.knownhost.com/services/managed-support.html
• Full Root Access
• Control panel options (cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, and Webmin) *
• CentOS 5x OS
• External Server Backup’s
• Equal share CPU
• Easy upgrade options on the fly

*cPanel, DirectAdmin, and Plesk have additional fees on top of the monthly prices below. Pricing can be found here:http://knownhost.com/services/vps-addon.html

New to the VPS market? We have tons of customers who switch to us from shared/reseller hosting so we give you all the information you need to get your VPS up and running.

Worried about security? We will optimize your VPS and install APF firewall upon request.

VPS M - $20/mo
125 GB Premium Bandwidth (250 GB BW in Ca)
128 MB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 512 MB
7 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://knownhost.com/services/vps.html

VPS L - $30/mo **With promo $15 for the 1st & 2nd month, $25.50 for Life**
200 GB Premium Bandwidth (400 GB BW in Ca)
256 MB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 768 MB
10 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://knownhost.com/services/vps.html

VPS XL - $40/mo **With promo $20 for the 1st & 2nd month, $34.00 for Life**
275 GB Premium Bandwidth (550 GB BW in Ca)
320 MB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 1 GB
20 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://knownhost.com/services/vps.html

VPS XXL - $60/mo **With promo $30 for the 1st & 2nd month, $51.00 for Life**
325 GB Premium Bandwidth (650 GB BW in Ca)
448 MB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 1.5 GB
25 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://knownhost.com/services/vps.html

VPS Triple X - $75/mo **With promo $37.50 for the 1st & 2nd month, $63.75 for Life**
375 GB Premium Bandwidth (750 GB BW in Ca)
512 MB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 2.0 GB
30 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://knownhost.com/services/vps.html

NEED MORE POWER?
KnownHost recently launched Hybrid Servers which combine Enterprise Class Hardware with a virtualization layer (Virtuozzo) on top of the host operating system.

For a limited time get 50% off your first month and 25% off your second month of hosting on any Hybrid Server. Please use the coupon code KHhybrid when placing your order.
**Please note, This promotion is for monthly subscriptions only.

HY-Eco - $110/mo
500 GB Premium Bandwidth (1000 GB BW in Ca)
768 MB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 2.5 GB
50 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://www.knownhost.com/services/hy-vps.html

HY-Pro - $135/mo
750 GB Premium Bandwidth (1250 GB BW in Ca)
1 GB Guaranteed RAM Burstable to 4.0 GB
65 GB Disk Space
Dedicated IP: 2
ORDER NOW: http://www.knownhost.com/services/hy-vps.html

Texas Datacenter

Test IP: 65.99.213.7
Test File: http://65.99.213.7/test.bin

California Datacenter

Test IP: 67.222.15.99
Test File: http://67.222.15.99/test.bin

Available upgrade options:

• 10 GB Bandwidth = $7.00/mo
• 25 GB Bandwidth = $17.50/mo
• 50 GB Bandwidth = $32.50/mo
• 100 GB Bandwidth = $60.00/mo
• 64 MB RAM = $5.00/mo
• 128 MB RAM = $7.50/mo
• 256 MB RAM = $12.50/mo
• 384 MB RAM = $17.50/mo
• 1 GB Disk Space = $2.00/mo
• 3 GB Disk Space = $6.00/mo
• 10 GB Disk Space = $15.00/mo
• Additional IP’s = $.75/mo
• Plesk Powerpack = $2/mo
• Fantastico = $1/mo
• Rvskin = $2/mo
• Clientexec = $5/mo
• WHMCS = $5/mo

For additional information, or to view our additional products and services, please visit www.knownhost.com; chat live with a sales rep or email us anytime at sales@knownhost.com.

Holiday Programming Note [MOVING DAY]

In addition to job-hunting, I’m also packing for a 100-mile move and celebrating Christmas.

As a result, I ain’t gonna be posting on Christmas Day through the 27th.

I’ve hooked Twitter into my MetroPCS phone.  I’ll have a how-to later on the contortions I went through to make it work.  Until then, if you need me, just Tweet @rizzn or call me with the number on the sidebar of the site here - and have a happy and safe Christmas, and I’ll see you on the flipside!

/rizzn

Hostdime Review

I thought after mentioning hostdime's great dedicated server promotion here: Free Dedicated Servers From Hostdime, I should throw a quick review since I am a customer there :)

Hostdime has been there since 2002, not so much companies are that experienced, and that gices great trust, with locatins and DC in 5 counties, so its a REAL company. I have used around 3 Dedicated Servers from Hostdime (Owned and Adminstrated) other than the shared accounts I had on some of their servers.

I will talk here about thier Dedicated Servers, they have great deals ofcourse as thier latest offer here mentions, but I will talk about the service and support.

Installation Time: Actually they are real fast, I got my server installed and running in 24 hours after it was approved, so I will have they are good at this point.

Support: The support is available 24/7 hands-on, meaning they will work on your server instead of  just telling you do that or this. Management which is related to support, their servers are fully managed, and they truly mean it, I always got the help I needed, not instantly but quite fast though.

Uptime: The uptime is not perfect, but for the average user its more than satisfactory if you can space a couple of minutes each month :D

Security: They run periodic security audits on servers and report back to the owners and can fix the vulnerabilities upon your request. There are some words going around that hostdime is insecure and stuff like that, I cant comment on that, but I never experienced such a thing unless when a user hosted on my servers had a very insecure script running.

Prices: A Fully Managed 2xQuad Core Xeon for a 400$ is a good deal, not the cheapest but definitly a great one.

Over All I do recommend hostdime for your dedicated servers.

Hostdime 99% Discount for the first month on dedicated

This is one of the best offers out there guys, check it out!

HostDimeMANAGED servers for UNMANAGED prices! Trust us today!

Thank you for taking the time to view our thread, we know you have choices and we appreciate the opportunity. We have been in this industry for over 6 years and believe in treating each customer with precious value. We will never forget we are selling a service and not a product. You are our assets today, tomorrow and forever. Our commitment to help you will not be undersold.
Get to know us and our facility! View >> HostDime.com/photos
YOU ARE READING RIGHT - ALL SERVER ORDERS YOU GET FREE cPanel AND THE FIRST MONTH 99% OFF!!! USE COUPON: lifeisgood during sign up process to validate this offer! YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BY TRYING OUR SERVICES!!
2 x Intel Xeon Quad-Core Harpertown 2.33 GHz (8 real CPUs)

* 4GB DDR2 Ram
* 4 x 750GB drives (Raid5 2.2TB usable space) or (Raid10 1.5 TB usable space!!!)
* 2TB Bandwidth on 100mbps port
* $500.00/month $0 Setup fee!
* cPanel INCLUDED!!!
* Order Here

AMD X2 4200+

* 1GB DDR2 RAM
* 2 x 160GB SATA II Drives
* 1.5TB Bandwidth on 10mbps port
* $100.00/month $0 setup fee
* cPanel INCLUDED!!!
* Order Here

For our low budget servers we have a clearance below!

P4 2.4 Ghz

* 2GB DDR2 RAM
* 2 x 160GB SATA II Drives
* 1.5TB Bandwidth on 10mbps port
* $100.00/month $0 setup fee
* cPanel INCLUDED!!!
* Order Here

1.7 Ghz Celeron

* 1GB RAM
* 2 x 80GB Drives
* 1.5TB bandwidth on 10mbps port
* $70.00/month $0 setup fee
* cPanel INCLUDED!!!
* Order Here

Our Recent Investments We have invested in hardware which we received at very aggressive pricing. We're here today to pass on the savings along to you. We feel it is our time to give back! We can offer you the BEST in managed servers for unmanaged prices. Why should you choose HostDime? We feel one of the main reasons is that we own and operate our own NOC. Dealing directly with the source creates a better trust, overall service and support. To know when you pick up the phone to call us that we can physically touch your server is a great assurance that everything will be handled promptly. Priceless guarantees no reseller can provide. Trust your business with us and we will take care of you.

* Ferrari trusts their business with us, please view the case study:
* http://www.hostdime.com/about/casestudies/study1.php
* The largest BMW M3 forum in the world trusts their community with us:
* http://www.m3forum.net/m3forum
* Gothador.com trusts us with their 25 clustered, and 2 colo servers

* http://gothador.comSupported Operating Systems ---------------------------------------------

* Fedora Core - Free
* Debian - Free
* FreeBSD - Free
* CentOS - Free
* Ubuntu - Free
* Gentoo - Free
* Slackware - Free
* Windows 2003 Standard Edition - $25.00/month

FREEBIES!!! ---------------------------------------------

* FREE eNom Domain reseller
* FREE Fantastico
* FREE RVSkin
* FREE Clickbe!
* FREE WHMCS

Control Panels Available ---------------------------------------------

* Cpanel/WHM w/RVSKIN w/Fantastico - $25.00/month
* Plesk Unlimited Domains - $30.00/month
* DirectAdmin - $15.00/month

Bandwidth Upgrades ---------------------------------------------

* Upgrade any server to 10mbit unmetered - $75/month
* Upgrade any server to 100mbit unmetered - $1000/month

Raid Options ---------------------------------------------

* Software Raid 1 - Free!
* Hardware Raid 1 - $25/month
* Raid 5 or 10 Available!

RAM Upgrades ---------------------------------------------

* Add 1GB ram - $20.00/month
* Add 2GB ram - $30.00/month

Have any further questions about these specials or other services of ours? If so, feel free to use the contact information below, as we are here around the clock to help! AIM Contacts ---------------------------------------------

* DimeNoc Clayton
* DimeNoc Manny
* DimeNoc Thomas
* DimeAudit Marcos

Contact Infomation ---------------------------------------------

* Sales Department 407.756.1126 Ext. 1 Hours: 8:00am - 12:00am (7 Days a Week)
* Technical Support Department 407.756.1126 Ext. 2 Hours: 24 Hours a day (7 Days a Week)
* Accounting and Billing Department 407.756.1126 Ext. 3 Hours: Monday - Friday 8:00am - 8:00pm Saturday 8:00am - 4:00pm Sunday 12:00pm - 4:00pm

Support Contact Form and e-mail ---------------------------------------------

* https://www.hostdime.com/contact/form.php
* help.desk @ hostdime.com

Source: WebHosting Talk

Best Hosting Affiliate Programs

I looked around for a while up and made a compilation of the best paying hosting affiliate programs out there, which is really paying :D, anyways here you go:

1. ThinkHost Affiliate program:

They are one of the rare hosts that also pay your for EPC and provide you with special copouns to provide to your referees.

$100 commission per referral at any plan level, + 2nd tier commisions:

referred/mo	$ earned
1-9	$15
10-19	$20
20-49	$35
50-99	$50
100+	$65!!

2. Lunarpages Affiliate program:

With the Lunarpages Affiliate Program, you get:

• $65 base commission rate
• $5 2nd tier commissions
• ready made banners
• a unique, close-knit staff
• incentives and commission raises at 100 referrals/month!
• tailored landing pages at 150 referrals/month

3.  Bluehost Affiliate program:

Bluehost will pay you 65$ for each referral you refer to thier hosting, pretty much easy as they offer very cheap and yet very trusted packages, so easy bucks :D

4. HostGator Affiliate program:

Hostgator has a great one tho, up to 125$ per referral :| here is the details:

1-5 a month	$50
6-10 a month	$75
11-20 a month	$100
21+ a month	$125

5. Dreamhost Affiliate program:

The thing about dreamhosts program is that you can choose to recieve a one time 97$ referral bonus + 5$ for each 2nd level referal, or you can choose to get paid 10% of all payments your referal makes for lifetime and 5% on the 2nd level referrals.

FriendFeed: Like Most Things, Good in Moderation [Scoble’s Intervention]

OK, so if you didn’t know I stormed off from FriendFeed in a huff during the election, very likely you were paying attention to more importan t things at the time than me.  Like the election.

But yeah, I stormed off.  You can read my un-caged beast over here and here if you so desire.

I’m revisiting the topic for two reasons:

I’m back on FriendFeed. Here’s the thread where you can go join the others in ridiculing my lack of resolve.

Robert Scoble Requires an Intervention. No, not the one I suggested at some point a while back. Mike Arrington suggested this evening that Robert Scoble needs a FriendFeed intervention, and that his blog and position as a thought leader has suffered as a result.

It was in response to the fact that Robert had let slip to Mike that he estimates he spent around 2,000 hours on the service since he joined:

What did I get for my 2,000 hour investment this year?

22,997 followers.
6,841 comments. (These are blogs and items I had something to say about, so I left a comment on them).
13,078 likes. (These are blogs and items made by other people that I wanted to share with you).
I manually followed 5,405 people. (You can see all the content they generate in real time here).

I don’t think I spent nearly that amount of time, but that’s because I know (as does Robert, if he’s strictly honest with himself) that it wasn’t a straight 7 hours a day.  You FriendFeed (unless you’re Mona) while you do other stuff. You leave the window open and monitor other stuff while you work.  I know that’s how I use it – otherwise I simply couldn’t get paid for the work I was supposed to be doing.

But like Robert, I’d imagine I spent, if you count all the hours you have the window open, around 2,000 hours if not more, since I worked way more than 7 hours a day, and generally had FriendFeed open for more than those seven hours (not to mention I was active on the service far earlier than Robert </geekcred>).

The Question Is: Was It Worth It?

Since I took a couple month sabbatical from the service, I was able to really see the difference in how it affected my blogging.  In terms of frequency – I was able to go back up.  There’s no doubt that there’s a time-suck involved.  Of course it didn’t help that I was blogging both professionally and on the side here at Rizzn, but once I was able to step back from FF, I was able to put some of that time back in here into other projects.

In terms of traffic, after the initial spike wore off, it was much more difficult to get any sort of traction on posts I wrote. 

I say that, keep in mind, in full agreement with Steven Hodson’s assessment that there’s a very narrow margin of what works on FriendFeed.  He and I commiserate regularly on the fact that certain posts, though they be wonderfully composed and thought out, will never be as popular as bacon.

That’s sad, but that’s life.  Overall, I trended upwards in my readership, but it was a much more difficult trek upwards. The threshold for a post gaining traction was much higher, and ironically dependent on FriendFeed, to a certain extent.

I have Disqus comments enabled, and usually whenever the first couple comments file in from FriendFeeders, the post rapidly starts to spread.  When I was separate from FriendFeed, the traction only seemed to occur when a FriendFeeder happened to comment.  Several times I had readers come by and leave a few comments, but since they weren’t FriendFeed users, the posts languished in relative obscurity.

In effect, I need FriendFeed (now, more than ever, since I’m going it alone instead of blogging on a highly visible site).

Don’t Expect Me to FriendFeed as Much as Robert

I never was as prolific as Robert was – mostly because I value my signal to noise ratios, whereas he revels in the noise. I personally think he overdoes it in that respect.  I get just as much value out of FriendFeed as he does, I expect, because I’m more discerning with my follows.

In the immortal words of Jane Buckingham: “If the news is that important, it will find me.”

I’m on FriendFeed because I want the news to find me quicker, and I want my news to be found quicker – while it’s still news.

So, bottom line, I’m back, and like Mike Arrington said about Twitter, I now say about FriendFeed: “I now need FriendFeed more than FriendFeed needs me.”

Consider my pride swallowed.

DedicatedNow: End of year blowout, Real Blowouts ;)

DedicatedNow is having a new End of the Year offer, details listed below, please note that solidwebs is not affiliated by anymeans to them.

For a limited time only, DedicatedNOW, the leader in managed dedicated hosting, is offering special pricing for on special Fully Managed Servers with 8GB RAM and your choice of cPanel or Plesk as well as Special pricing on already low Specials !
RAM & CONTROL PANEL BLOWOUT Offer Details
DedicatedNOW is offering our already powerful Multi-Core servers with 8GB of RAM! These servers come fully managed with your choice of cPanel or Plesk. No Contract.

In business for 11 years, DedicatedNOW.com is a managed hosting provider with more than 4,500 servers in service. Thriving on innovation and a customized approach to infrastructure and support, DedicatedNOW offers competitive pricing on fully managed, complex, high-availability hosting solutions... In Fact, we've recently won Top Hosting Choice for 2008 with WebHostingSearch, WebHost Report Card's Editor's Choice for Managed Hosting and Web Host Magazine's Editor's Choice Award for Web Hosting!

ALL RAM & Control Panel Blowout servers come complete with:

* Full Management
* 8GB RAM
* Your Choice of cPanel or Plesk
* 50GB R1Soft CDP Offsite Backup, with MySQL Hot Backup included!
* Full System Security Lockdown
* 2000GB Premium Bandwidth
* dotDefender Web Application Firewall (with any cPanel order)
* 5IPs
* KVM over IP
* Fully Redundant HSRP
* Private Network
* SSL VPN
* 100% Uptime SLA
* Your Choice of OS: CentOS 4.x, CentOS 4.x 64-bit, CentOS 5.x, CentOS 5.x 64-bit, FreeBSD, FreeBSD 5.x, FreeBSD 6.x, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04, Windows 2003(Web, Standard, Enterprise), Windows 2008 (Web).

To take advantage of this great offer, place an order for any fully managed server shown below, while supplies last, to receive the offer. To order, visit our website at www.dedicatednow.com.

---Core2Duo E7200 2.53Ghz--- www.dedicatednow.com
CPU: Core2Duo E7200 2.53GHz
Memory: 8GB RAM
Control Panel: cPanel or Plesk
Drives: 2 x 250GB SATA II
Bandwidth: 2000GB Premium Bandwidth
5IPs
100% Uptime SLA
Backup: 50GB R1Soft CDP
-------------------
Only $245 a month!
8GB RAM, FREE CONTROL PANEL

---Core2Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz--- www.dedicatednow.com
CPU: Core2Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz
Memory: 8GB RAM
Control Panel: cPanel or Plesk
Drives: 2 x 250GB SATA II
Bandwidth: 2000GB Premium Bandwidth
5IPs
100% Uptime SLA
Backup: 50GB R1Soft CDP
-------------------
Only $259 a month!
8GB RAM, FREE CONTROL PANEL

---Dual QuadCore Xeon 5405--- www.dedicatednow.com
CPU: Dual QuadCore Xeon 5405 2.0GHz
Memory: 8GB RAM
Control Panel: cPanel or Plesk
Drives: 2 x 250GB SATA II
Bandwidth: 2000GB Premium Bandwidth
5IPs
100% Uptime SLA
Backup: 50GB R1Soft CDP
-------------------
Only $375 a month!
8GB RAM, FREE CONTROL PANEL

---Dual QuadCore Xeon 5420--- www.dedicatednow.com
CPU: Dual QuadCore Xeon 5420 2.5GHz
Memory: 8GB RAM
Control Panel: cPanel or Plesk
Drives: 2 x 250GB SATA II
Bandwidth: 2000GB Premium Bandwidth
5IPs

100% Uptime SLA
Backup: 50GB R1Soft CDP
-------------------
Only $399 a month!
8GB RAM, FREE CONTROL PANEL

Limitations: This offer may not be combined with eachother or other offers, and are not applicable on Closeout or Special servers. Customers with existing DedicatedNOW servers may not cancel an existing server to take advantage of this special offer.

SPECIAL SERVERS:
DedicatedNOW also offers substantial discounts on Dual Opterons and Dual Xeons! Every special server includes:

* 5IPs
* 1200GB Premium Bandwidth
* Fully Redundant HSRP
* 99.9% Uptime SLA
* Your Choice of OS: CentOS 4.x, CentOS 4.x 64-bit, CentOS 5.x, CentOS 5.x 64-bit, FreeBSD, FreeBSD 5.x, FreeBSD 6.x, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04, Windows 2003 (Web, Standard, Enterprise), Windows 2008 (Web).

---Dual Opteron 246--- www.dedicatednow.com
Dual AMD Opteron 246 processors (2.0 GHz). 2GB RAM, 200GB SATA drive, 5IPs, 2000GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $179.95 a month!

---DualCore DualXeon 5130 Special--- www.dedicatednow.com
Dual AMD Opteron 246 processors (2.0 GHz). 2GB RAM, 200GB SATA drive, 5IPs, 2000GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $199.95 a month!

---Dual Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz--- www.dedicatednow.com
Dual Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz processors. 2GB RAM, 2 x 160GB SATA drives, 5IPs, 2000GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $199.95 a month!

---Dualcore Dual Opteron 265 (1.8GHz)--- www.dedicatednow.com
Dual AMD Opteron Dualcore 265 processors (1.8 GHz). 2GB RAM, 250GB SATA drive, 5IPs, 2000GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $209.95 a month!

CLOSEOUT SERVERS:
DedicatedNOW also offers substantial discounts on Pentium4, PentiumD, Celeron and AMD Athlon Servers! Every closeout server includes:

* 5IPs
* 1200GB Premium Bandwidth
* Fully Redundant HSRP
* 99.9% Uptime SLA
* Your Choice of OS: CentOS 4.x, CentOS 4.x 64-bit, CentOS 5.x, CentOS 5.x 64-bit, FreeBSD, FreeBSD 5.x, FreeBSD 6.x, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04, Windows 2003(Web, Standard, Enterprise), Windows 2008 (Web).

---Intel Pentium4 2.8GHz HT--- www.dedicatednow.com
Intel Pentium4 2.8 GHz processor with Hyperthreading. 1GB RAM, 160GB SATA drive, 5IPs, 1200GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $99.95 a month!

---Intel PentiumD 2.8GHz--- www.dedicatednow.com
Intel PentiumD 2.8 GHz processor. 1GB RAM, 160GB SATA drive, 5IPs, 1200GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $99.95 a month!

---AMD Athlon 3000+--- www.dedicatednow.com
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8GHz). 1GB RAM, 120GB SATA drive, 1200GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA..
Only $89.95 a month!

---Intel Celeron 1.7--- www.dedicatednow.com
Intel Celeron 1.7 GHz processor. 512MB RAM, 80GB IDE drive, 5IPs, 1200GB Bandwidth, 99.9% Uptime SLA.
Only $49.95 a month!

Upgrades and Add-Ons:
UPLINK:
Upgrade to 100Mbps Ports: $10 monthly

RAM:
1GB - $25/month
2GB - $50/month
4GB - $100/month

DRIVES:
250GB SATA - $12/month
500GB SATA - $30/month
750GB SATA - $40/month
1000GB SATA - $50/month
36GB SAS - $35/month
73GB SAS - $40/month
146GB SAS - $50/month
300GB SAS - $115/month

RAID:
RAID 1 - $30/month
RAID 5/10/0 - $50/month

IPs
IP upgrades available, ARIN justification required.

Control Panels:
cPanel: $25 Monthly (RVSkin, and Fantastico are avaialable for $2/mo each)
Plesk 30 Domain: $15 Monthly
Plesk 100 Domain: $20 Monthly
Plesk Unlimited Domains: $30 Monthly (Includes Plesk Power Pack Light (Application Pack and Spam Assassin))

Any questions please don't hesitate to call or email us at 1-888-734-9320 ext 4 or email sales@dedicatednow.com

High Availability Dedicated Hosting:
Interested in a Load Balancing, Clustering or a custom solution? Checkout our Server Management page on dedicatednow.com

DedicatedNOW Data Center:
The DedicatedNOW Data Center resides in Clifton, NJ, just 14 miles from New York City. This new facility boasts enormous growth potential allowing us capabilities of up to 55,000 sq ft of pure datacenter floor space, and ease of access to backbone providers. Currently, the facility incorporates over 7,500 sq ft of completed raised floor data center space, along with 5000 sq ft of corporate office space which includes a front reception area, conference rooms, and ample space for our employees. The new datacenter has been carefully planned from inception to overcompensate for such factors as cooling, generators, UPS's, secondary generators, fire suppression, and much, much more. Our new facility has been set in place with 7,500 sq ft of raised flooring, 8 (eight) 20 ton AC units and double pre-action fire suppression system. Our datacenter is powered by a Liebert UPS system and a Caterpillar generator with 4 days of standby fuel. Our datacenter is monitored 24/7/365 by an overl
apping array of CCTV cameras and datacenter entry is secured by both biometric and card key access.

DedicatedNOW DC Pics: http://www.dedicatednow.com/facilities.php

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Our network runs on our own dark fiber ring connecting our two redundant pops in 111th NYC and 165 Halsey (Equinix) NJ. Each fiber leg is capable of handling our entire networks traffic in case of a failure. Each leg can upgraded to provide transport capacities up to 320Gbps totaling 640Gbps of available transport capacity. Our core consists of Dual Cisco 6509 SUP720 Routers, fully meshed to multiple aggregation switches for maximum uptime. Our multi-homed network is fueled by premium tier 1 carriers Above.net, NLayer, Saavis (2x), Telia, Sprint and Global Crossings with peering through NYIIX.

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DedicatedNOW Support:
DedicatedNOW offers:
- 24/7/365 Live Onsite Support via helpdesk and phone.
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Enable certain php configurations to a single account

This is an alternative to custom php.ini files.

Requirement: SSH Access
Time Needed: 5-10 minutes
Level: Advanced

As you noticed this is placed in the company owners section, so I will be talking about the methods the adminstrators can use, and not simple users.

In this article I am assuming you are runninng PHP as an Apache module, as if its a cgi module it will be systematic to use a php.ini file.

It can be really a headache when a certain user or even you need a certain option to be enabled while it represents a security risk; like shell_exec() or allow_url_fopen.

So, to enable this for a single account most of you will think of two things:

• Using a custom php.ini
• Using the .htaccess override.

Actually, in most of the cases if the server is really secured those methods wont work (I will discuss exactly those methods in details in another article, but this one is for the direct method that will work if you have SSH access).

So lets get started:

1. Open you SSH tool, I use putty, connect to your server as root.
2. Backup your httpd.conf file.
3. Open your httpd.conf file.
4. Go to the accounts virtualhost, it should look like this:

DocumentRoot /www/example1
ServerName www.example1.com

.
.
.
.

# Other directives here

in this example i am assuming you use php5, if not you will see your proper version, or even see them all.

5. Now, we will write the option we want before the tag, but make sure you are in the module of the php version you use, for example if your server has php4 installed you should be playing in the

6. There are two kinds of directives you can set, boolean or value type, here is a list of all that can be changed:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ini.php#ini.list

To change a boolean one, add the following before the tag:

php_admin_flag name value(on|off)

To change a value one, add this:
php_admin_value name value

Note: you can use php_flag & php_value  but i prefer the admin ones as they are unchangable.

7. Save your config file and restart apache.
8. Test everything to make sure its working correctly.

If you are not using cPanel ignore the next step. (I am not familier with other control panels and I dont know whether a similar step is needed)

9. When you are 100% sure that everything is working, run the following command to stablize your new configuration to remain if you update. In case you dont do this, after your first update all your custom edits will be removed.

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/apache_conf_distiller --update

10. Done! ;) Visit us back :D

HostGator Review

Of course all of us know Hostgator, the big hosting company. I remember when hostgator was starting its marketing fuss, claiming they are the best. They are actually very good, but not the best.

They have the best uptime, speed and everything, we all also know about their prices, which other than the Baby plan, you really get what you pay for, tho you can get it cheaper ;) So, I am not going to spend alot of time talking about how good it is, but in brief I will mention what I dislike about them and why you should choose a smaller host.

• First of all, they require photo verification for all creditcard payments, tho its a security requirement, I feel its not necessary for shared hosting registration, may be for dedicated.

• Secondly, this is not a flaw in their system, but still you should try to get as much as you can for your money. HostGator will offer you support, fast support, but just that, while some other hosts, like our Sponsor for example :D hehe, will help you to solve your problems step by step, they will even solve it for you, its like a managed hosting account :D.

Also, whats great about DotMain.com our sponsor is that they offer you every single tool you might need for reselling accounts, starting from templates, premium ones to billing software, all of that completely free, and they help you even set it up.

HuffPo’s Grubby Syndication Practices

[This has been cross-posted from my new blog, /socnets>.  If you’re not yet subscribed, you oughta be.]

The Huffington Post, a liberal web publication I’ve taken to task a number of times in the past, has once again come under fire for what is being described by some as “grubby” and “gray”.

Here’s what’s happening: You know how large publications like BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times frequently have syndication agreements in place with beat bloggers, and will run their content with a small amount of branding?

Huffington Post has been doing essentially the same thing, though without any permission.

If you want a great summary of some other folks commentary and details on this, the Duncan Riley at the Inquisitr has the deets, but I’ve described the general idea of what’s going on.

Here’s my thoughts: in this day and age, I’m not surprised nor am I particularly offended by HuffPo’s practice, here.  Not only are they essentially doing what’s been done for ages in the blogosphere, but they’re also doing what we’ve let aggregators of our content do for a very long time.

I won’t go trot out my usual argument about the imaginary lines between a web based app and a web publication we define by how the bits arrive at our screens (though it’s a very valid argument, just one that doesn’t seem to get me anywhere, usually).

Instead I’ll point at two examples of where this is presently happening, and we really don’t seem to care all that much:

Nick Halstead’s Fav.or.it: We’ve all talked about Fav.or.it a lot, and for many of us it’s a nice little piñata to trot out every once in a while whenever the purists like to complain about content being used without permission. I’ve done it. I’ll go into how my opinions have changed on that in a bit, but the bottom line is that but for a little bit of protest here and there, nobody really seems to have tried to do anything about it.

To the best of my knowledge, no lawsuits have been filed against Nick et. al. Likewise, no one’s tried to DMCA their content back down.  They’re not rip-roaring along on an endless growth pattern, according to the metrics I look at, but they’re not exactly hurting either.

Point being, apparently having your content out there syndicated in part or in whole acts as source of some kind of advertising.  Who knew?

My Link Blog: This is something I can talk about with a bit more authority than Nick’s project.

As I described it when it first launched, I’m syndicating all the items from my Google Reader Shared Items feed on a limited basis here at Rizzn.com. When I looked around at the number of reputable organizations that syndicated without permission the full text of others’ feeds, I took the advice of one of my readers:

You're a fool to pay for content AS LONG AS you can get it for free with no repercussions. At the present time, it looks like not only can you, you can do it and dance a happy jig while people shower you in golden wreaths.

When I launched it, I almost hoped it would garner a little bit of controversy, particularly given my previously loudly shouted positions to the contrary on it, if not a bit of community discussion.

So far, it hasn’t done much of either. Turns out, most people come to my site to read what I have to say, not others (imagine that). In fact, most people that come through to my site to read an article written and syndicated on my linkblog, they generally (according to my stats package), click through to the original site to leave a comment, in lieu of commenting here.

In Other Words, I Have Nothing Bad To Say About HuffPo

And those of you who know me know I’d love to nail them to the wall, if at all possible.

But the way I see it, they’re doing these other sites a favor.  Being linked prominently on a site like that which has as much traffic as HuffPo means having a lot of traffic. I know, I can personally attest to how much traffic being linked to by both highly popular political sites as well as sites in general around the popularity level of HuffPo is.

It’s generally a good thing, and in the end a mutually beneficial relationship between both the linkee and the linker.

Our New Embargo Policy

We’ve never had an embargo policy at Rizzn.com.  Never really needed one.

Since I’m sorta doin’ this all professional-like, I’ll just say, in response to his highness Arrington, that he’s full of garbage.  I couldn’t say this a week ago, but I can say it now (since I’m once again a free agent): he breaks embargos all the time, and he’s lying if he says he doesn’t.

Another tactic that I’ve been told he uses: he won’t agree to an embargo if the intro email is detailed enough, and then publish a “rumor” based on what’s in the email.

This, of course, helps his credibility since the “rumor” turns out to be true.  Having seen it in the past take place before my very eyes (while still respecting the embargo he’s reporting the “rumors” about), I can see how the tactic as described looks like something pretty accurate from where I’ve sat.

What’s our embargo policy here at Rizzn.com?

Meh, we’ll honor them.  It’s pretty stupid for me to say no, being a little guy again, instead of a big-leaguer.

I do have a request, though, for folks who send me releases… can you make them more interesting?  There are few things more annoying than trying to slog through marketing speak written as a story.

There’s just no reason for them to be written like stories.  I like bullet points, and maybe some good quotes from pertinent players, if they’re usable and not 100% buzzword.

I’m not a huge fan of the embargoed press release, but it’s not the worst thing in the world like people make it out to be. 

Sometimes people break them, sometimes they don’t.  It’s not the end of the world.  That junk irritated me the first few times it happened, but there’s only so many times I can get mad over something so trivial.

So send your embargos over here to Rizzn.com.  And not TechCrunch.  Because we’ll honor them, and they won’t.

I’m Over Here Now [FAQ]

As of last Friday – the only place to get regular updates from me is here at rizzn.com. Change your email address for me to guesswho@rizzn.com.

Unfortunately, given the amount of buzz going on around the tubes at the moment, I can’t publicly address or answer questions regarding the nature of my departure for my former position. None-the-less, at this point I don’t bear anyone any ill will, and still treasure the time I’ve spent blogging the last fifteen months or so.

It was a great opportunity, and a great learning experience to see what the media world looks like from atop a mountain instead of always being in the unseen trenches.

The questions I’ve seen that I can address and clear up is what’s on the horizon for me next (or at least I can attempt to clear that up).

What Am I Going to be Doing Next?

That’s a real good question. As many of you know, I’m in the midst of a move to Dallas that’s set to conclude the 27th of this month. As such, I’m very interested in what sort of opportunities I’m going to find there.

What’s even more interesting has been the flood of very cool and enticing offers that I’ve seen in just the last few days. This is a brand new experience for me – generally, I’m used to scraping and clawing for every consulting gig I can come across.  Now that word is spreading that I’m a free agent, I’m getting people actually trying to compete to employ my talents.

This, needless to say, is awesome, and contributes to my already over-sized ego.

Because I have a glut of opportunity now doesn’t mean I’m not interested in your proposal.  Email me with it <guesswho@rizzn.com>. All reasonable offers will be considered (“Let’s cut a deal!”).

For other ways to contact me, just hit up the site. There’s a ton of contact links on it now.

This Site Looks Really Different, By The Way

Yeah, thanks for noticing. This whole thing is a custom coding job I’ve been slowly evolving for the last several months, with a bunch of major additions that I’ve been slipping into the background over the last two weeks in anticipation of this move (yeah, I sorta saw some writing on the wall).

As many of you know (if you’ve been paying attention at all), I tried to launch a web series called “TENtech,” which was a great idea in theory. Problem was, it’s Christmas-time. People are busy. Out of the many contributors that I had signed on to help out, only a few of them ended up being able to contribute.

So as a result, I’m going back to the basics. My favorite thing to do over the last fifteen months was the interview podcast series. I’m going to do the same thing here.  I’m going to interview interesting people on camera, most likely via remote video, and display the raw feeds here on Rizzn.com.

On that note, if you’re a CEO or in the PR for a cool tech company and you have a webcam, drop me a line, and let’s get you on the show.  I have a ton of subscribers, and I’ve been told I’m pretty fun to talk to.

I don’t have the feeds set up yet, but if you’re subscribed to any of my past video feeds, you’ll likely be getting the show as it comes out.  If not, just check back here at the site, I’m sure the details will be prominently plastered everywhere.

Also, New Blogs: Social Networking and ROBOTS!

I’ve been regularly updating a blog that only a few people read, “Rizzn’s Robots” (feeds.feedburner.com/rizzn/robots). It’s something I’ve been interested in doing for a long time, and for some reason never got around to getting done.  I’ve found that the updates are easy to do and flow out of me quick, so I think the site will be sustainable from a passion perspective.

If you like robots at all (and if you don’t, what the hell is wrong with you?), I’d strongly suggest you subscribe to it, or at least scroll through what’s there.

I’ve also launched a new blog called “Rizzn’s Socnets” (feeds.feedburner.com/rizzn/socnets). It’s essentially the sort of social media news I’ve been posting the last fifteen months, but here and not there. There aren’t a lot of bloggers that still religiously cover the podcasting and video beats like I do, so I wanted to keep a place where the neglected stories can get some coverage here.

As of last night, I've also signed some deals to have at least two new writers come and work for Rizzn.com, and there's word of me getting an intern as well, so hopefully I'll be able to foster some community here at the site as well as making it a bit of a destination for the news in the style I like to convey.

So until someone else hires me into some sort of exclusive relationship to talk about those topics, I’ll be updating that feed here with whatever’s rumbling around in my head on the topic.

So Are You Signed With Another Outfit Yet?

No, not yet. I’m still fielding offers at the moment, and there are a number of enticing opportunities, but nothing has progressed far enough for me to say exactly where I’m going to land yet.

The Sappy Stuff

I’ve saved the sappy stuff for the end, because most of you are likely interested in the news of what I’m doing next and why I’m leaving and all that other mess.  Not to mention that for those of you interested in the personal angle, you hafta read through all my other self-promotion to get to this part.

All my former co-workers had an impact on my life, but I wanted to make special mention of the folks I had the closest contact with, the editorial team.

Pete Cashmore has been one of the most interesting folks to work for in my long history of having interesting bosses. He and I always had whirlwind conversations, and I’ve admired his insight and unique perspective on social media. Of all the bosses I’ve had, he’s been one of my favorites.

Adam Ostrow was a great Editor in Chief, and was cool to work with this past year. He’s got a laid back style that made conflict resolution a breeze (because there’s always some sort of conflict to resolve). That didn’t prevent him from relentlessly executing, and his expectations of his staff caused me to strive to constantly improve. I like to think I succeeded at that.

Stan Schroeder was an awesome editor. He always has a penchant for going straight to the heart of the matter and saying in five words what I take five paragraphs to say. His insight and feedback was something I always valued.

Sean P. Aune was probably the guy on staff with whom I had the most contact, and someone I count as a friend first before I count him as a co-worker. He and I had a blast doing the video version of our podcast, but what was the most fun was commiserating over IM on whatever was the latest thing to vex we cranky bastards.

All the other writers and content producers who’ve worked directly for me over the last year also have been great additions to my life, most of which I also now count as friends and reliable business contacts. In no particular order (I hope I’m not forgetting anyone): Steven Hodson, Alana Taylor, Doriano “Paisano” Carta, Kristen Nicole, Art Lindsey III, and Saha.

As for all the PR people I’ve worked with over the last year – definitely keep me in your rolodex.  I’ve actually struck up rewarding friendships with a number of you, and I’ve enjoyed being kept constantly in the know by just opening my inbox.