[sf-lug] Astound ISP Hosting Webserver

[Justin Ryan]

2008/8/14 Nathan Hoover <nathan at foo-o-rama.com>:
> I hate to give the trite answer, but maybe choose an ISP that doesn't unduly
> restrict you? There are reasonable network management reasons to block SMTP
> traffic, but IMAP and HTTP is just going overboard. Even the much-maligned
> AT&T (which I have now) and Comcast (which I had previously) didn't block
> those services. I've found them both to be reasonably reliable (at least out
> here in San Mateo) and meeting - in AT&T's case - or exceeding - in
> Comcast's case the advertised speeds.
>

This isn't a trite answer, IMO!  If one want to provide services to
the world on standard ports, and those ports are blocked, it's going
to be pretty hard.  Sure, you can run http on 1080 or whatever you
like, but make sure to put that port number on your business card. ;)

FWIW, in the city, I had a terrible mess with AT&T and Speakeasy, both
of whom couldn't meet their lowest advertised speed, so depending on
location, evaluate what options you have.  Both advertise up to
15mbit, but I had trouble pulling 3 and ended up with tons of downtime
and shrugs at the SLA.

You really want a static IP, and Speakeasy, though they charge a good
bit more than AT&T, at least does not charge extra for the switch to
"business service".

Honestly, however, for less than the cost of a speakeasy account, you
can get a vm at slicehost.com with four virtual cores and a gig of ram
that will serve your site much, much faster.  Then you can use
Comcast, which I've found a good bit faster at my location, and
doesn't have to be reliable enough to run my customer sites.

Surely many of us know the joys of running a setup at home, but the
truth is, it doesn't make sense - not for your business, your
visitors, or the environment.

$0.02 + interest ;d

Peace,

J

-- 
Justin Alan Ryan
Independent Interaction Architect
http://www.bitmonk.net/
* : +1-415-226-1199 x2600

"All because of a bunch of stuff that happened.."
 -Homer Simpson
"The best way to get in touch with me is PayPal.
 -Alexander Limi