Web hosting services,CGI and PB

[BOB MECHLER]

What is the least expensive Web hosting service that will support cgi with PB? I have Godaddy.com but they only offer cgi on their Linux servers.

[Erich Schulman]

A Linux server is not going to help you much if you plan to run PB-based programs. And it appears GoDaddy's Windows hosting does not allow CGI.

Perhaps you can find a way to work within their Windows hosting. Hostultra.com might be a viable alternative. (I have never used them myself.)

[Brad D Byrne]

Bob, http://trustedwebhost.com supports PB cgi's, how-ever they have had some down time with their servers over the last few months, search forum here for posts there are quite a few members here that use them, there support has been really good, yet their mail server has many problems and their domain name service has been terrible for me, they use a third party for DNS and I lost one DN even after paying for it due to a mistake by their third party provider and they (trustedwebhost) was unable to fix it, so maybe be cautious

[Marco Pontello]

I too have had some issues with them, both for the downs and later for changing where a domain name registered with them was pointing.
A couple years ago I would have said the contrary, but now I can't recommend them at all.

Bye!

[Mike Doty]

I like trustedwebhost, but agree they have had some problems.
They have been very good over the last month. If you have a problem
you get the same guy on the phone and he is always helpful. They offer a lot of disk space at a great price. You will find it hard to find other ISP's willing to let exe's run on their servers.

[Marco Pontello]

Some hosting options were also mentioned in a previous thread started by Bob Zale:
A good ISP

Bye!

[Shawn Anderson]

If you're interested:

We currently run about 400 web sites and of course allow pb cgi.

What are you thinking of price-wise and space-wise?

We don't have user self-configuration services so for things like adding email addresses you just have to email our support.

We have a MySql server if you need it.

Files are uploaded via FTP (no web-interface type of uploading).

We run IIS 6.

[BOB MECHLER]

Shawn,

I am interested in reviving my vertical market app but just need a place right now to develop it. None of my competitors have a web interface so it is the right time to see if I can do this.

Need about 5 gig of space. MySql is fine although I was thinking of using Cheetah or Tsunami.

Printing at the remote workstation is important and would need guidance on that.

I've seen an example of what you are doing and envision a similar approach for my product.

Already know the vertical market, already know PB so I just need a ballpark estimate. I'm not dirt poor but this will be out of my pocket as I don't feel I should use my company's web server for this project. I assume I would need to sign up for at least a year.

Thanks also for the other references and caveats from other members. I plan to investigate all of them.

Bob Mechler

[Joe Byrne]

Bob,

Certainly not to take anything away from Shawn, but have you looked into hosting your own? Its not all that hard. The "expensive" part is getting a static IP to your home/office. Many ISPs have some sort of 'business class' service where you can get an address and the legal ability to host a server across your connection for just slightly more than a non-commercial account (this varies widely from place to place so YMMV).

If that's an option though, you can turn any old P3 or P4 PC into a web server (the slowest part, especially for a single site, is going to be the Internet connection. PC speed isn't all that much of an issue). I run Windows 2000 Pro for mine....rock solid if you're doing a straight install, doesn't require rebooting very often, and cheap. You can use any number of free or low cost Web server packages. I prefer Abyss myself. Their single-site version is completely free.

You might want to weigh out the cost of hosting vs. the cost of doing it yourself. You obviously have a lot more control on your own turf.

[Shawn Anderson]

I'm working out of town this week, so when I get back next Tuesday I'll talk to some people at work and get back to you with a possible solution.

Otherwise, Joe is right about hosting your own. It'd also be a great learning experience if you ran your own server, if that's something you're interested in.

[Mark Strickland]

Virtual Hosts

Many hosting companies offer virtual servers.

Good news --
1) If you get a Windows machine you can pretty much do anything you want. Administration is via some web tools and/or RDP. They generally have at least one static IP included. GoDaddy has these and gives 3 static IP's included in the price.
2) Most have tools to host several domain names on a single IP address.


Bad news --
1) Price ($30+ per month depending on features)
2) Pretty much no support because they cannot help with problems for your own custom software (ie PB CGI programs)
3) Total transfered byte limit. Beyond that there is an extra charge.

If you host your self you will need enough upstream bandwidth. This is also more expensive. My local cable guys have a "business plan" but they are limited to 8 megs down but only 512 k up (the direction you will be serving pages).

[Joe Byrne]

limited to 8 megs down but only 512 k up (the direction you will be serving pages).

This sounds like more of an issue than it really is, especially if you're only hosting a single site, no heavy video, and you don't call yourself Google

I have a commercial server (windows based) that runs on a 512 static DSL line. There are a dozen sites on it, one that streams mp3s. The traffic is fairly heavy (8k hits/day) yet the bandwidth is more than adequate. Basic HTML pages need very little bandwidth and all the 'heavy' processing (via CGI/SQL/Etc) are not dependent on bandwidth. I generally find that most new sites work very well on 512k for a good year or so. As they grow and start serving more content, they often need to be moved up to the T1 level, but then again, a large number never need that kind of pipe.

Serving is a lot different than being the client. I'd surely much rather have 3+ gig download speeds when surfing, but your average web site can do an awful lot over 512k.

(BTW, most cable technologies are not well geared to serving. Since its a shared bandwidth technology, you loose a lot of control. DSL or dedicated lines are far better. Again though, getting a site up and running doesn't normally require a huge amount of bandwidth, especially during the first year or so, unless you have VCs funding your newest social networking mega site)

[BOB MECHLER]

The 8 meg up and 512 k down sounds like DSL using a dish instead of with the phone company landline. Am I correct?

I'm thinking the cheapest dsl just for testing purposes on my landline. I've found 'localhost' to be inadequate in telling how a site would respond in the real world (user's experience) and in fact many of my customers probably have DSL as their only option anyway.

Bob Mechler

[Shawn Anderson]

I've talked to my people here, and here's what I've come up with for PB users:

This is our generic offer but if there is something specific you need but don't see here don't be afraid to ask.

PB Friendly Web hosting for binary executables
500mb space (no throughput limit)

Email
We will assist you in setting up your domain email through Gmail. Gmail provides this for free. Once it's set up you can administer it yourself and support will be through Gmail.

Miscellaneous
A MySql database is available.
We do not allow Front Page extensions.
ASP.net 2.0 is installed.
File uploading is done through standard FTP.
We don't have a web interface for configuration, so I will set up data and cgi directories with the correct permissions by default. If you need other permissions set then you would just email our support and we would do it for you. We have 8 bonded T1 lines for our web servers. All of our servers are battery and generator backed up. We backup all of our servers every night. We monitor our servers 24x7x365.
We run IIS 6 on our Windows 2003 server.

Price
$10/month: must pay for a whole year at a time.

if you have any questions please email me at [email protected]

[Joe Byrne]

Shawn,

That seems like a very good deal!

[Shawn Anderson]

A few updates:

We now have a synchronous 35mb (35mb up and down), tier-1 fiber connection instead of 8 bonded T1 lines.

The cost is now $99/year instead of $10/month.

We've moved most of our servers from our office building to our new data center.

Thanks

[Mike Doty]

Are orders taken at http://www.nbson.com

Do you have any site that I can look at that uses a PB executable?
What are the limitations?

[Shawn Anderson]

We are a small company (not a hosting farm per se but we do host about 400 websites) so we don't have a lot of automated processes. If you want to go with us, you can just email me:
-your domain name
-billing name and address
-desired ftp user/password
and I will immediately start the process of setting you up here.

I will email you an invoice that you can pay on our website or can call
309-944-8823 and pay my bookkeeper Michell.

Support is done by phone or email to [email protected].
You can also email me directly [email protected].

Most of my cgi sites are private, but here is real-time a video of one:

http://www.nbson.com/bcmdemo/bcm.htm

I'm short handed this week so I can't guarantee we'll get it set up today but I'll try if you're in a rush.

One other thing: If you need email, we set up all domain email using Google Apps. We just set it up for you and let you have control of it after that.

Thanks!